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TWO LETTERS 

/' CAUSATION 



FREEDOM IN WILLING, 

ADDEESSED TO 

JOHN STUART MILL. 

"With An Appendix, 

ON 

THE EXISTENCE OF MATTER, AND OUR 
NOTIONS OF INFINITE SPACE. 

BY 

EOWLAND G. HAZARD, 

ATJTHOE OF "LANGUAGE," "FREEDOM OF MIND IN 'WILUNG," ETC. 






^BOSTON: 
LEE AND SHEPARD. 

1869. 






Entered, according: to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

LEE AND SHEPARD, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. 19 Spring Lane. 



LETTER I. 

ON CAUSATION. 



1. My Dear Sir : In your letter of June 7, 
1865,1 understand you to agree with me that 
volition and choice are different ; and as you do 
not object to my definitions of Will and of Lib- 
erty, I assume that you accept them. You fur- 
ther say, that " on the subject, practically consid- 
ered, I am at one with you. Your view of what 
the mind has power to do seems to me quite 
just, but we differ on the question how the mind 
is determined to do it." You take position and 
argue the question thus : " But I do not find that 
your arguments in any way touch the doctrine 
of so-called Necessity, as I hold it; you allow 
that Volition requires the previous existence of 
two things, which the mind itself did not make, 
at least directly, nor in most cases at all — a 
knowledge and a want ; you consider as the pe- 
culiarity of a free cause that its determinations 

(3) 



4 ON CAUSATION AND 

do not depend on the past, but on a preconcep- 
tion of the future ; but though the knowledge 
and the want refer to what is future, the knowl- 
edge and the want themselves are not future 
facts, but present, or rather past facts, for they 
must exist previous to the volitional act. You 
seem to admit, not only that the knowledge and 
want are conditions precedent to the Will, but 
that the character of the Will invariably corre- 
sponds to that of the knowledge and want, and 
that any variation in either of these determines, 
or at least is sure to be followed by, a corre- 
sponding variation in the Volition. Now, this is 
all that I, as a necessitarian, require. I do not 
believe in anything real corresponding to the 
phrases Necessity, Causal Force, or the like ; I 
acknowledge no other link between cause and 
effect, even when both are purely material, than 
invariability of sequence, from which arises pos- 
sibility of prediction ; and this, it seems to me, 
on your own showing, exists equally between 
Volition and the mental antecedents by which 
you allow that they are and must be preceded." 
You then refer me, for further argument, to a 
chapter in your " Keview of Sir William Hamil- 
ton," and in this I find reference again to Chap- 
ter XI., Book VI., of your work on Logic. I 
may have occasion to notice portions of each ; 
but first, as to your letter of June 7, and the 
statement in it that you " acknowledge no other 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 5 

link between cause and ejBTect, even when both 
are purely material, than invariability of se- 
quence " — no " Necessity, Causal Force, or the 
like." We are here at the very foundation of 
the question, and if we here really differ, argu- 
ment upon it may be of no more avail than it 
would be upon a question of the color of an 
object, when one man said, to his eyes it was 
red, and another that it was green, or, perhaps, 
rather asserted that there not only was no red- 
ness, but nothing to be either red or green. 

Your expressions, just quoted, seem to imply 
that change may take place without the action of 
any power to produce it. This no-eause philosophy 
precludes all argument as to Cause or Causal 
power, and of course as to the mind in effort as 
such a cause or power. It denies, or at least 
wholly ignores, such power, and of course any 
exercise of it, free or unfree. 

If " invariability of sequence " is the only rela- 
tion between ilowing or changing events, all 
reasoning as to how these events come into ex- 
istence, or why or how conformed to this invari- 
able order, is precluded, and philosophy is reduced 
to the mere observation of the flow of events and 
the memory of the observed succession. We 
have only passively to note the events that occur, 
and the repetition or non-repetition of the order 
of their occurring. In this view. Volition or effort 
is but such an event, and not a mode of power 



b ON CAUSATION AND 

by which an intelligent being originates change, 
and controls, creates, and modifies the future. 

A wise man may perceive that it is best that 
he should move from a consuming fire, but if 
there is no causal force, neither the perception 
itself, nor the perceiving being, can cause either 
the consequent movement or the effort to move. 

Though the expression in your letter admits 
of such construction, I do not think you mean 
merely to say that you admit of no Causal Force, 
as hetween the exercise of the power and the effect 
of its exercise — no tautology of power — in 
which I would agree with you ; for the exercise 
of a sufficient power does not require the addi- 
tion or action of another power to bring about 
the effect ; but I rather suppose you to mean 
that, between the antecedent events and the 
consequent events, you recognize, outside of the 
events themselves, no causal power of the differ- 
ence or change from the former to the latter 
which constitutes the effect. This view, too, 
seems to me to be confirmed by portions of your 
chapter on Causality, which I have just looked 
into ; while in your attempt to get over the 
obvious objection that night and day, though 
invariably and reciprocally antecedents and con- 
sequents, are not causes of each other, I think 
you really postulate efficient causes as existing 
in " properties of matter," and like phrases ; and 
in the exception you make when you say, " We 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 7 

could predict the whole subsequent history of 
the universe, at least unless some neiv Volition of a 
power capable of controlling the universe should 
supervene," you appear to admit (though pos- 
sibly only in deference to the opinion of those 
who differ from you) that Volition may, or might 
be, an efficient Cause. 

2. Before proceeding further, it may be well 
to inquire into our notion of Cause. 

But first, as to the origin of this notion to 
which portions of your chapter on Sir William 
Hamilton's theory of Causation have called my 
attention. In saying, "But there is another 
theory : . . . . that we acquire both our notion 
of Causation, and our belief in it, from an internal 
consciousness of power exerted by ourselves, in 
our voluntary actions ; that is, in the motions of 
our bodies, for our Will has no other direct action 
on the outward world," you approach most nearly 
to a statement of my views ; but there is still a 
wide difference. You add, " To this doctrine Sir 
William Hamilton gives the following conclusive 
answer. 

" ' This reasoning, in so far as regards the mere 
empirical fact of our consciousness of Causality, 
in the relation of our Will as moving, and of our 
limbs as moved, is refuted by the consideration, 
that between the overt act of corporeal move- 
ment of which we are cognizant, and the internal 
act of mental determination, of which we are also 



8 ON CAUSATION AND 

cognizant, there intervenes a numerous series 
of intermediate agencies, of which we have no 
knowledge ; and consequently, that we can have 
no consciousness of any causal connection be- 
tween the extreme links of this chain, — the 
volition to move, and the link moving — as this 
hypothesis asserts. No one is immediately con- 
scious, for example, of moving his arm, through 
his Volition. Previously to this ultimate move- 
ment, muscles, nerves, a multitude of solid and 
fluid parts, must be set in motion by the Will ; 
but of this motion we know, from consciousness, 
actually nothing. A person struck with paraly- 
sis is conscious of no inability in his limb to ful- 
fil the determination of his Will ; and it is only 
after having willed, and finding that his limbs 
do not obey his Volition, that he learns by this 
experience, that the external movement does not 
follow the internal act. But as the paralytic 
learns after the Volition that his limbs do not 
obey his mind, so it is only after the Volition that 
the man in health learns that his limbs do obey 
the mandates of his Will.' 

" With this reasoning, borrowed, as our author 
admits, from Hume, I entirely agree." * 

Now, admitting all Sir W. Hamilton says, I do 
not see that it is a conclusive answer, or even an 
answer at all : the question here is not what or 

* Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. III. 
Vol. II. p. 40, Am. ed. 



FEEEDOM IN WILLING. 9 

how we cause ; nor what is the action of Cause : 
nor on what does it directly act ; but how we 
" acquire both our notion of Causation, and our belief 
in itr Even if it could be shown, not only that 
there are intermediate movements which escape 
our observation, but that we are mistaken in 
the whole phenomena of muscular movement 
from beginning to end, it would not prove, nor 
even tend to prove, that we do not get our notion 
and belief from the deceptive appearances. It 
might, in such case, be plausibly argued that the 
notion and belief, being founded upon erroneous 
assumptions, would be fallacious ; but even thi& 
reasoning would not be valid, there being no 
necessary or real dependence of the genuine 
notion and belief upon the correctness of the 
particular observation which suggested it. If I 
should say that I got my notion and belief of 
motion from the movement of the sun around 
the earth, it would hardly be deemed a disproof 
either of my assertion, or of the correctness of 
my notion and belief as to motion, to say, that 
the sun in fact did not move around the earth 
at all ; and even if it should be proved that mo- 
tion was absolutely impossible, it would not follow 
that we had not thus acquired our knowledge 
and belief of it. Some idea of motion must pre- 
cede any demonstration of its non-existence. 

This argument of Sir W. Hamilton, then, does 
not touch the theory as you have stated it, and 



10 ON CAUSATION AND 

if it had refuted that theory as effectually as you 
suppose, there was still another intrenchment to 
be overcome before the positions I have taken in 
" Freedom of Mind in Willing," &C.5* would have 
been disturbed. For it might have been shown 
that we could not by experience get our notion 
and belief of Cause from a mistaken or partial, 
or even from a full and correct observation of the 
influence of our efforts in producing change; and 
yet this would not have proved that such notion 
and belief were not the result of an innate knowl- 
edge of a faculty of effort, and of its relation to 
muscular movement, or even from such knowl- 
edg;e of the two extreme links of the chain of 
phenomena, — the effort and the muscular move- 
ment, — which is what I assert. 

In support of this view, I have there stated 
that we could not obtain this knowledge by ob- 
servation of movement by others, either of their 
muscles or our own, the connection of such 
movement with the effort of others not being 
open to observation ; nor yet from reflection, no 
rational connection having ever yet been discov- 
ered between them; and further, we could not 
have acquired such knowledge by our own expe- 
rience, in moving our own muscles, because we 

* " Freedom of Mind in Willing; or, Every Being that Wills a 
Creative First Cause." Published in 1864. " Creative First Cause " 
here signifies one that of itself begins and effects change, and not 
one that is prior to all others, as some of the reviewers have sup- 
posed. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 11 

must have had the knowledge before any case 
of such experience could have arisen • we could 
not make effort to move the muscles, and espe- 
cially with design to move any particular mus- 
cle, till we knew that effort was the mode of 
doing it. The very statement of the case pre- 
cludes the supposition that it could be done by 
accident, without such pre-existing knowledge. 
The making of effort, with the design to produce 
a specific effect, is the antithesis of accident, and 
wholly excludes it. This reasoning, with the 
observed facts in regard to the earliest actions 
of all active beings, indicates that this knowledge 
is innate. Any proof that we cannot obtain this 
knowledge by experience, goes to confirm my 
position, rather than to subvert or weaken it. 
Both you and Sir William Hamilton, however, 
assert that this knowledge of our ability to move 
our muscles is acquired by our experience in 
moving them. In the concluding sentence of 
the argument, as above quoted, and approved by 
you, he alleges this, and even asserts that it is 
acquired in the same way as any bystander ob- 
tains it, by outward observation (I take your 
statement of it). You both hold that all our 
knowledge of Cause is derived from experience. 
But, before there can be any experience of mus- 
cular movement by effort, there must be effort 
— before " the man in health learns by experi- 
ence that his limbs do obey the mandates of his 



12 ON CAUSATION AND 

Will," there must have been " the Yolition," — • 
the mandate, the effort, to move the limbs ; and 
to this end there must have been prior knowl- 
edge of the mode of making the effort, and espe- 
cially of directing that effort to the 'particular 
muscular movement designed. There must also, 
prior to this experience, have been that "pro- 
phetic anticipation" which can inform us, prior 
to experience, that the "Volition will be followed 
by an effect ; or, at least, that there is such a 
relation between the two, that this is sufficiently 
probable to justify the effort, and which "pro- 
phetic anticipation" you say you agree with Ham- 
ilton and Mansel in rejecting. I confess that 
upon this subject I should have expected to find 
whatever three such profound thinkers, looking 
at the subject so differently, agreed in, invulner- 
able on all sides ; but, for the reasons already 
given, I am constrained to dissent even from 
such authority. 

There either must have been self-action, — ef 
fort before we knew how to act, or there must 
have been knowledge of the mode of self-action, 
of making the effort, prior to any experience of 
it. Of these two alternatives it seems to me the 
latter must be adopted as the only one which is 
conceivable, and, in that case, the knowledge of 
the mode of making effort, and that effort is the 
mode of producing muscular movement, must 
be innate — ready for us whenever the occasion 
arises. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 13 

Without some such " prophetic anticipation " 
of the effect of effort prior to all experience, 
effort never would be made, and experience as 
to effort never could begin to be. No rational 
being would put forth effort without some prior 
expectation that a desirable effect would be pro- 
duced, though it may be only by experience that 
he could ascertain that his expectations were 
well founded, and his future confidence in them 
confirmed. 

But all the phenomena of Instinct indicate 
not only that this knowledge of the mode of mak- 
ing effort, and that it is the mode of producing mus- 
cular action, is innate, but that from this central 
point, in which action has its start, there diverges 
the innate knowledge of the plans or series of 
actions, and of the order of the succession in each 
series, by which certain ends are reached. 

That complicated series of muscular move- 
ments by which the child transfers the milk from 
the maternal breast to its own stomach, is as 
well known to it at birth as after long experi- 
ence. It even knows where to find this nutri- 
ment. I hold that the distinguishing character- 
istic of all instinctive action is, that it is made in 
conformity to a mode or plan which is innately 
known,* while rational actions require prelimi- 
nary effort to design the plan, or the series of 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book I. Chap. XI. 



14 ON CAUSATION AND 

efforts by which the end may be reached, and 
that when, by frequent repetition of the same 
series, we come to follow it out by memory, each 
act in turn being suggested by that which. preceded 
it, rather than by reference to the future end 
designed, the action becomes habitual ; and thus 
the instinctive actions, which are our first, and 
prior to experience, are like the habitual (which 
can only be after much experience) in this, that 
in both we act in conformity to a plan which is 
already in the mind, ready formed, requiring no 
effort to form such plan. 

This similarity has found expression in the 
vulgar adage, " Habit is second nature." 

From what I have already said, it will appear 
that I do not deem it essential to our rudimental 
notion of Causation, that we should be conscious 
of all the intermediate steps, from the first action 
of a Cause, or Power, to its ultimate effect, how- 
ever necessary this may be to the completeness 
of our knowledge of the phenomena which re- 
sult from its action. I would, however, remark 
that in view of the exposition I have given of 
Instinct and Habit, it may be possible that we 
do know, or may have been conscious of, the 
intermediate effect of effort upon the nerves and 
fluids by which muscular movement is reached. 
We know that when, by long practice, we habit- 
ually perform series of actions with little thought 
about the order of their succession, portions of 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 15 

them are immediately obliterated, leaving no 
trace in memory, and that this obliteration in- 
creases with the acquired facility which habit 
engenders. In reading we forget that we saw 
the particular letters, recollecting the final result 
of the combination of words, or more generally 
only the ideas, forgetting even the words by 
which they were conveyed to us. It would not 
be strange that we should, early in life, acquire 
the same habit in regard to the intermediate 
steps in a process which was perfectly known to 
us at birth, which at no period ever required 
effort or even observation to learn, and which 
we are constantly repeating in every moment 
of our conscious existence, or that, under such 
exaggerated conditions, these intermediate steps 
should wholly cease to be the subject of mem- 
ory. 

3- Having said thus much of the origin of 
our notion of Cause, we may next inquire what 
the notion itself is, of which we find ourselves 
possessed. If we should attempt to go back of 
this fact of the possession of a notion which is 
innate, we should encounter the same difficulties 
which attend our inquiries into the origin of 
matter. We have not witnessed its creation ; to 
us it has had no beginning, and hence the cir- 
cumstances of that beginning are as inscrutable 
as if it were an eternity ago. 

This notion as it originally exists, I think, is 



16 ON CAUSATION AND 

that of ability to do something — of power to 
do — to change what is, and thus bring about 
what as yet is not. It may be originally con- 
fined to the knowledge of particular cases, or 
even to the one case of muscular effort by 
movement, which, as before shown, must be in- 
nate or intuitive in every being that Wills, and 
furnishes the type of the idea of Power, than 
which no idea is more distinct, isolated, peculiar, 
and fundamental. If, however, my analysis of 
instinct is correct, this innate or intuitive knowl- 
edge, as I have already stated, extends far beyond 
this genesis of action, and embraces that of series 
of actions to reach an end. 

It is not essential to our idea of Cause or of 
Power, that we should know that we can by any 
means extend the effects of our efforts beyond 
our own muscles, or beyond the moment of effort* 
Having this genetic knowledge of effort, we may 
subsequently learn from experiment the modes 
of extending it, as, for instance, that by the use 
of a rod we may extend it in space, and that by 
throwing a ball we may extend it in time also. 
We do not thus reach the essence of Power, or of 
Cause, any more than through sensation we reach 
the essence of matter or of its properties. But 
even though we never get at this knowledge of 
it, we may still, in the study of phenomenal ef' 
fects, and of that order of their succession which 
is so important to us, derive advantage from find- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 17 

ing what existences have the property of power, 
and under what conditions it is manifested, as 
we may be aided in the study of natural philos- 
ophy by investigating the phenomena of weight, 
and finding what substances possess it. 

That this knowledge of our ability to produce 
change by efibrt, was the original type of our 
idea of Cause seems to be very generally admit- 
ted. Even Comte, while ignoring all causative 
power, virtually admits that Cause was originally 
predicated only of spirit power. I am far from 
supposing that a notion being general, or even 
universal, is conclusive proof of its correctness. 
A large part of our progress in knowledge con- 
sists in finding that such notions require to be 
modified or discarded. Still they have the ad- 
vantage of actual possession, and from the neces- 
sities of the case should hold till discredited, either 
directly, or by producing others with a better 
title to our credence. 

4. Assuming these positions, we have still to 
inquire what Cause really is, and whether the 
notion of it which arises from our conscious 
efforts in connection with the effects anticipated, 
and subsequently observed, has been properly 
superseded. 

In this discussion, I might have expected to 

find a leader, or at least an ally, in Sir William 

Hamilton. But upon the question of the origin 

of our idea of Cause, he is against me ; and on 

2 



18 ON CAUSATION AND 

that of the idea itself, he does not appear to have 
even found the battle-field. His theory is em- 
braced in the formula, The cause is equal to the 
effect, by which his subsequent reasoning and 
examples show, that he means the antecedents 
are equal to the consequents. Had he only used 
the word adequate, which in some senses is the 
equivalent for equal, it would have been the com- 
mon expression for one of the relations of cause 
to its effect; but this would have pointed the 
thought in a different direction. Grant the 
equality in any and every sense, and what is 
gained ? The question is not as to the equality 
of antecedents and consequents, but how, or by 
what agency or means, the antecedents come to 
be converted into the consequents; and upon 
this their equality or inequality has no bearing 
whatever. Equal or unequal, the question how 
or by w^hat converted, remains the same. That 
a cask of brandy is in any respect the equivalent 
of a ton of grapes, in no way enlightens us as to 
how or by what the grapes were converted into 
the equivalent, brandy. His saying, " This, then, 
is the mental j)henomenon of Causality, — that 
we necessarily deny in thought, that the object 
which appears to begin to be, really so begins ; 
and that we necessarily identify its present with 
its past existence," with his argument upon it, 
seems to me only to assert that, when Cause has 
produced or made something, we cannot con- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 19 

celve that it made that something out of noth- 
ing, but that there must have been something, 
and a sufficient something, to make it of. 

I have defined Cause to be, " that which pro- 
duces change." * 

The word " produces," here, is important. Un- 
der your view, the corresponding expression 
would perhaps be, that which invariably pre- 
cedes change. 

I notice that you use the word produce in con- 
nection with the advent of phenomena, but I 
know it is difficult to conform the language to 
changes of thought and belief We still speak 
of the sun's rising, and even of its going round 
the earth. In such cases much latitude must be 
allowed ; and hence when, in reference to certain 
Permanent Causes, you say, " these have existed,, 
and the effects or consequents they were fitted 
to produce have taken place," I interpret the 
expression as meaning that certain permanent 
phenomena are fitted to be the invariable antece- 
dents of the consequences which have taken 
place ; and so of some other similar statements. 
But as to being fitted, if power to produce is 
ignored, I cannot see why a tornado, a horse 
race, or a bonfire are not each or all as well 
fitted to invariably precede an eclipse of the 
moon as anything else is. Leaving out this idea 
of power, all phenomena may be conceived of as 

* Freedom of Mind, &c., Chap. V. 



20 ON CAUSATION AND 

happening in any assignable order of succession, 
or of co-existence. 

The phrase I have adopted still seems to me 
to express the popular, perhaps I might say 
natural idea of Cause, and that which is nearly 
universal, the exceptions being in those whose 
reasonings have led them to other views, and 
other expressions, which, were they general and 
uniform in this class, might properly avail against 
the notions of the large majority who have not in- 
vestigated. I see, however, no reason to change 
this, definition, though further elucidation and 
extension of it are needed. 

The knowledge of our ability to make effort, 
and that it is the mode by which we should seek 
to produce muscular movement, perhaps, gives 
us the notion of Power, rather than of Cause ; 
but with this notion of Power that of Cause is 
very closely allied, though not identical with it. 

Cause is always the correlative to effect, and 
effect implies a change ; Powder always has some 
change, as the object or tendency of its exercise; 
but it may be insufficient to overcome the in- 
ertia, passivity, or resistance of the present sub- 
sisting conditions, and in that case does not act 
as Cause. 

If this distinction does not obtain, I see no 
difference between the idea of the exercise of 
Power and that of Cause. 

Cause, then, may be said to be power in sue- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 21 

cessful action; i. e., the exercise of a sufficient 
power ; power then produces a change — an 
effect — of which its sufficient exercise is the 
cause. 

This using Power as the generic term for the 
primitive idea, and Cause to designate this suffi- 
cient apphcation or exercise of power which pro- 
duces an effect, is a mere question of definition 
to be settled as may be found most convenient 
and useful in expressing and advancing thought. 
The balance of advantages seems to me to be in 
its favor. 

Adopting this distinction, I would say that our 
notion of Power, and also of Cause, is derived from 
our innate knowledge of effort and of the effects 
anticipated from it ; but that we can only know 
our ability to be the actual cause of any specific 
effect by experiment — by testing the sufficiency 
of our power in effort. 

The change sought or tended to in the exer- 
cise of power — the effect to be produced or at- 
tempted — ■ is always in the future. In the past, 
what was, cannot be obliterated or made to be 
what it was not; and in the present instant, 
what is, cannot in the same instant be what it 
is not. 

5. Cause, then, always implies effect, and ef- 
fect implies change. This change may be within 
or without us, and may arise from the variation in 
what before existed, or in entirely new creation. 



22 ON CAUSATION AND 

In regard to some changes within ourselves, as 
variations in the arrangement of our ideas, or in 
the portions which we make the objects of atten- 
tion, we attribute them to our own direct agency. 
In regard to the external, we are not conscious 
of the possibility of creating matter out of noth- 
ing, or out of anything else, and hence attribute 
all changes in it to a change in that which al- 
ready exists ; and this again to motion of it in 
some form. Even change of color we come, by 
experience, to look upon as taking place under 
this necessary condition of material change. 

So far then, at least so far as relates to mate- 
rial phenomena, the statement that for every 
effect there must be a cause, is equivalent to 
saying, that for every change there must be mo- 
tion or activity, and through this expression of 
it the law is resolved into the truism, that for 
every activity there must be something capable 
of acting. If that which changes has in itself 
the faculty of activity, we do not look beyond it 
for the cause of the activity, but only for the 
reason why it put forth its self-active power; 
but if it does not possess this faculty of acting, 
but has only a susceptibility to be moved by be- 
ing first acted upon, we still seek to connect it 
with a self-active power or cause, which moved 
or put it in motion. 

We know only one such Cause, and that is in- 
telligent being, with the faculty or power of 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 23 

effort ; with wants, the gratification of which re- 
quires the exercise of this power ; and with 
knowledge to direct its efforts to this end. 

Such a being has every attribute essential to 
a first Cause, is obviously fitted to act as such 
Cause, and could do so in the absence of every 
and all other power ; could of itself produce 
effects and changes, though everything else in 
the universe tended to be passive and change- 
less. 

That which acts as it perceives an occasion or 
opportunity, acts from knowledge, and may itself 
exist in a passive state, till it perceives a reason 
or occasion for acting; till, in its own view or 
judgment, action is better than inaction. 

The knowledge which is requisite to, or which 
constitutes, this judgment, may be passively re- 
ceived. Knowledge not only may be acquired 
without effort, but never is the direct consequence 
of effort.* 

To this original notion of Power, and of Cause, 
derived from our innate knowledge of the mode 
of producing movement by effort, and thus to 
create or change the future, making it different 
from what it otherwise would be, and which no- 
tion is constantly confirmed by our observation 
of external events, experience leads us (properly 
or not) to add that of matter in motion, and to 
look upon it as a power which also affects the 

* Freedom of Mind, &c., Book I. Chap. III. 



24 ON CAUSATION AND 

conditions of the future, and hence, as a Cause. 
But, although we thus naturally come to regard 
matter in motion as a cause, we do not look upon 
it as self-active, or capable of originating motion ; 
and hence, when we have traced some effect to 
the action of matter in motion, we still look for 
the Power, or Cause, which put it in motion, 
thouo;h in the case of the effort of an intellio-ent 
being, we only look for a reason why that being 
exerted itself, or put forth its power of activity. 

In the case of matter in motion (as it cannot 
put itself in motion), we must either refer the 
origin of its power to the only other cause, that 
of intelligent being in action, or suppose it to 
have been in motion from all eternity — posi- 
tions which I have examined in "Freedom of 
Mind," &c. 

If matter when at rest requires power to move 
it, and when once in motion has a tendency to 
continue in motion, — has power or force in itself, 
— then some effect must of necessity follow from 
the collision of material bodies ; for in such col- 
lision both are tending to occupy the same space, 
and this being impossible, the tendency will be 
thwarted in one or the other, or in both. 

If matter was first put in motion by the effort 
of intelligent being, it is rather an instrument by 
which such being extends the effect of its causa- 
tive power in time or space than a causative 
power itself; and in this case any uniformity in 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 25 

the succession of its movements is but a uniform 
mode of the intelligence which put it in motion, 
acting through and combining with such neces- 
sary effects of material forces as have just been 
mentioned. If the being using these forces is 
deficient in the knowledge of them, he may igno- 
rantly make efforts which will be thwarted by 
them. 

Upon the questions as to how far matter may 
be cause, it may perhaps aid us to consider the 
real difference between material and mental phe- 
nomena, as presented to us in the earlier stages 
of our cognitions of them. I have before pointed 
out that we know no other difference between 
our perceptions of external reality and the in- 
cipient creations of our own, in which by effort 
we realize new forms of it, than that we can 
change the latter by a direct act of Will, and can- 
not thus change the former ; and that if, from 
any cause, we should, at any moment, find that 
we could not thus change our own imaginings 
(of a landscape, for instance), that moment the 
imagery so fixed would become to us an external 
reality.* Is there anything in this, the only dif- 
ference known to us, to warrant our assuming 
that the manifestations or imagery which we can- 
not directly change at will, have any more causa- 
tive power than those which we can so change ? 
The imagery of both kinds is really all in the 

* Freedom of Mind, Book I. Chap. IX. 



26 ON CAUSATION AND 

mind, but we indicate the distinction arising from 
this observed difference by calling that which can 
be directly changed by Will subjective, and that 
which cannot be so changed objective phenom- 
ena. Among the objective are some which we 
can change indirectly by effort, and others which 
we cannot. We can, for instance, through mus- 
cular action, move a pebble, and, in so doing, 
make it a means of extending the effects of our 
own efforts in space and time. We make it a 
secondary or motor cause.* We cannot thus 
move a granite mountain, and for this reason 
cannot thus make it such a Cause. The facts 
observed in the objective phenomena, then, indi- 
cate that what is subject to our Will is most read- 
ily converted into Cause, and, so far as the anal- 
ogy goes, indicate that causative power may be 
more properly attributed to this than to the ob- 
jective. The former, subject to be changed by 
direct act of Will, may, as in the objective, sub- 
ject to like change indirectly, be made a second- 
ary or quasi cause. Of the mathematical dia- 
gram in the mind, in which we can embody new 
conceptions, we can make a cause of our discov- 
ering new geometrical relations ; and so far as we 
can by effort impart this conception and imagery 
of our own to other minds in fixed objective 
manifestation, we may make them cause of in- 
creased knowledge in others. 

* Freedom of Mind, Book I. Chap. V. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 27 

This analogy does not, however, suggest that 
either the subjective imagery, which can be 
changed by direct act of Will, or that portion 
of the objective which can be thus indirectly 
changed, has any causative power in itself, or 
that it can in any proper sense be itself Cause, 
but that, in both cases, the images or phenomena 
are merely instruments which intelligent, self- 
active Cause may act upon and use to extend 
the effect of its own efforts, as already stated. 

If the existence and motion of matter have 
been co-eternal with spirit, then matter may be 
regarded as a distinct causative power, from the 
action of which certain necessary effects follow, 
which in virtue of this necessity will be uni- 
form. In the action of an intelligent being, 
there will also be a degree of uniformity grow- 
ing out of its acting from its perceptions and 
knowledge of the best mode of reaching a de- 
sired result, and its adopting this mode, when 
once ascertained, to each recurrence of similar 
circumstances ; and a further uniformity in the 
action of different intelligent beings, growing out 
of the similarity of their natural wants, and the 
fact that the fountain of absolute truth from 
which each seeks to draw his knowledo;e is the 
same for* all. The combination of these particu- 
lar uniformities will constitute, or tend to, a cer- 
tain degree of uniformity in the succession of 
events generally, enabling each intelligent being, 



28 ON CAUSATION AND 

with more or less of accuracy, to anticipate the 
future, which it may seek by its own efforts to 
vary, when it perceives an object or reason for 
so doing, and also a means of doing it ; while 
the wants and imperfect perceptions of beings of 
finite powers and capacities are sufficiently various 
to disturb the uniformity which would prevail if 
every one wanted precisely the same objects, and 
a(j;reed as to the mode of obtainino; them. 

There are many vague expressions, indicating 
as vague notions of power in association wdth 
them ; but we do not naturally attach the idea 
of power to any knoivn thing, except intelligent be- 
ing in effort, and matter in motion. I hold, too, 
that of these two and only notions of power, our 
knowledge of the former is much more conclu- 
sive and imperative than of the latter. The 
knowledge that we can make effort, and the 
mode of doing it, as also that by effort we can 
produce change, being innate, — born with us, — 
and acted upon every moment of our conscious 
existence, has, by longer and more permanent 
place in the mind, a stronger hold on our belief 
than the facts known only by subsequent expe- 
rience through our sensations, which are transi- 
tory, and, coming through an additional medium, 
are more liable to be distorted, as an object ^\q- 
sented directly to the eye is more likely to ap- 
pear as it really is than if seen through glass or 
water. But, be this as it may, we subsequently 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 29 

come to know the power of mental effort to pro- 
duce change through experience, — through ac- 
tual observation of the results of repeated experi- 
ments, — - and hence the fact that mind in effort 
is such a Power or Cause, producing such change, 
is at least as well attested in these modes as the 
phenomenal changes themselves are through sen- 
sation. 

It is not by a prior exercise of power that we 
make effort ; effort — exertion — is itself the act 
of power, which may or may not be adequate to 
the effect intended — may or may not be actual 
Cause. The immediate intention of one class of 
efforts is always to obtain knowledge of what has 
been, now is, or will be, including those abstract 
truths which have no reference to time ; or to 
form new conceptions, new imagery — new crea- 
tions — in the mind, which may or may not be 
actualized, or even attempted to be, in the ex- 
ternal world. They may be the mere castle- 
building of the imagination. The only other 
class of efforts (no less mental) is always intend- 
ed to move some portion of our body. It is 
through our bodily motions that we act upon the 
remoter material world ; and as we need to do this 
in a very early stage of our existence, we may, 
from the necessities of the case, as well as from 
observed facts, infer that we, at least in some 
cases, innately or intuitively know that we can 
extend the effect of our efforts by putting matter 



30 ON CAUSATION AND 

in motion. A child or kid would starve before 
it could experimentally learn that complicated 
series of muscular movements which it instinc- 
tively performs to obtain its nutriment. 

But to return to the two only modes of Causa- 
tion of which we have any real conception — 
mind in action, and matter in motion. To these 
we attribute a property which we attribute to no 
other phenomenon or thing, and except between 
these and their effects we do not look for that 
invariable connection or sequence upon which 
the law of cause and effect is founded. All 
other events may be conceived of as happening, 
and all other things as existing, in any conceiv- 
able variety of co-existence or succession ; for 
though it might appear that events could not 
happen at all without such action or motion — 
without cause — we can conceive of their exist- 
ence abstracted from their causes. 

It is certainly proper that this peculiar attri- 
bute, by which these two things are contrasted 
with all others, should have a specific name — 
that what is thus distinguished in its nature as 
essential to the existence of all other phenom- 
ena, or to any change in what is — should be 
also distinguished in terms ; and accordingly we 
designate this alility, which inheres in, and is 
characteristic of, this action of mind, and this 
motion of matter, by the word Power ; and that 
sufficient exercise of it which produces change, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 31 

by the word Cause. "We recognize that without 
the exercise of some power to change present 
existences, they would continue as they are ; and 
this exercise of pow^r to change, we attribute 
only to that which is active — to matter in mo- 
tion or mind in effort. 

I have already suggested that our belief, that 
matter in motion is in itself Cause, is, of the two, 
less strongly attested. Admitting the existence 
of matter as a distinct entity, with the property 
of resisting force, and that once in motion it has 
a force which tends to keep it in motion, requir- 
ing counter force to resist or overcome it (of all 
which, however, I have been unable to find either 
proof or disproof), some effect, as before shown, 
must of necessity take place whenever the force 
of such moving matter comes to be exerted upon 
other matter. All the effects of mere matter in 
motion must be of this order of necessity, for 
matter, unintelligent, can know no difierence, 
and can have no power of selection. Hence, 
though, under the broad concessions to it above 
made, matter in motion might cause a certain 
current of events, or phenomenal changes in a 
certain order, it would have no power to change 
that order ; and if any power to change this order 
exists, it must be in the only other form of power 
■ — that of intelligent effort. Though matter once 
in motion may have this restricted causative 
power, it cannot move itself, and hence cannot 



32 ON CAUSATION AND 

begin the series of changes, for of such series its 
own motion is the first step. 

Even if we conceive it as having; a self-active 
faculty in itself, still, being unintelligent, it would 
not know when to exert it — when to begin 
moving — and an existing power for the exer- 
cise of which no occasion could ever arise, would, 
of course, be only latent, i. e., never being exert- 
ed, would never become causal power; and if 
this difficulty were surmounted, it still could not 
know in what direction to move, and the exer- 
cise of a power to move which tends to motion 
in no direction is a nullity, or, if it tends equally 
to move in all directions, neutralizes itself, and 
ceases to be power. Hence the power to begin 
change, if any such exists, can be only in intelli- 
gent effort, and hence any beginning of motion, 
and any interference with the effects of such 
motion, must be attributed to such effort. Hence 
too, when we see any such effects which are not 
the results of our own efforts, we reasonably at- 
tribute them to the action of some other intelli- 
gent agent, and in some cases, from the apparent 
power required, to an intelligence with power 
greatly transcending our own. 

The putting of matter in motion being the 
only means by which intelligent beings extend 
the effects of their own activity, not only beyond 
the sphere, but beyond the period of their own 
action, the necessity for this means might be 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 33 

supposed to indicate not only the existence of 
matter, but that, when in motion, it has the cau- 
sative mechanical power usually imputed to it. 
But this extension and prolongation of the effects 
of the efforts of a finite intelligence in producing 
sensations in itself, and in others, after its own 
efforts, and in regard to others, even after its 
own attention is withdrawn, can as well be attri- 
buted directly to the action of an Omnipresent 
and Omniactiye Intelligence, directly and uni- 
formly causing these sensations, as a sequent of 
the efforts of finite beings ; and hence no such 
argument in favor of the existence of matter, or 
of its power when in motion, is available. 

Q. Some of the foregoing results may sug- 
gest a corresponding solution of the question, " Is 
the effect simultaneous with the action of its 
cause?" to which you have alluded, apparently 
with some doubt as to the proper answer to it. 

The question may be embarrassed by the use 
of the word cause, to signify that actual exercise 
of power which produces change, and also that 
being or thing, which, as occasion or opportunity 
occurs, can exert or manifest such power. This 
potential Cause may exist for an unlimited period 
without producing any effect, and of course may 
precede its effect by any length of time. But 
actual, effective Cause, being the exercise of a 
sufficient power, its effect cannot be delayed ; for, 
in that case, during the period of delay, there 
3 



34 ON CAUSATION AND 

would be the exercise of a sufficient power to 
produce the effect without producing it, involv- 
ing the absurdity of its being both sufficient and 
insufficient at the same time. The effect must 
wholly result from causes in action at the time 
it occurs. If nine men are ineffectually pressing 
against a rock till with the aid of a tenth they 
move it, the effect is that of the immediate efforts 
of the whole ten, and the prior efforts of the 
nine are no part of the cause of its movement, 
but the efforts of the nine which are made simul- 
taneously with the tenth are. It is the simulta- 
neous effort of the whole ten which availed, and 
the previous efforts of the nine added nothing, 
aided nothing, the combined efforts of the ten 
being just as effective without these prior efforts 
as with them. 

The common idea that cause may precede its 
effect, however, comes very naturally to us, for 
in all cases of our action on matter, even in that 
of the movement of our own bodies, we reach 
the end sought through the movement of some 
intermediate substance, and motion of substance 
implies succession, or time. We move the hand 
by an effort which causes a flow of blood to it ; 
of this, however, we are not naturally conscious, 
nor do we naturall}'^ get the idea that the move- 
ment of the hand is not simultaneous with the 
effort — that there is no intervening time or phe- 
nomena. Most persons are perhaps surprised to 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 35 

find, as a result of scientific investigation, that 
such is the fact, and that the intervening time is 
capable of being estimated, and found to vary 
in different individuals. But when we want to 
move the hand, or any portion or all of our bodily 
organism, we want to move it through some 
space — to some place more or less remote from 
that which it occupies — and the reaching of 
this place being the end or effect in view, the 
element of time of necessity comes in, and the 
repeated association of effort with the final re- 
mote effect produces an idea that this effect may 
not be simultaneous with the effort. The same 
reasoning more obviously applies to the effect 
of mere matter in motion. If the momentum of 
the body in motion is a cause, or is the exertion 
of a sufficient power to keep itself in motion, no 
time elapses between the exercise of that power 
and the effect or motion ; otherwise the motion 
would not be continuous, for this motion is itself 
the effect, and if it stopped at all, its momentum 
or power would be wholly lost, and its motion 
be immediately and permanently arrested. It is 
a case in which, through association, experience 
misleads us as to the abstract idea, much as in 
the case I mentioned in a former letter, in regard 
to the general belief that a moving body cannot 
be turned directly back, without first stopping 
at the extreme point of advance. These fallacies 
of experience, as applied to the abstract idea 



36 ON CAUSATION AND 

now in hand, may perhaps be better illustrated 
by another case. Suppose an unelastic tube, 
reaching across the Atlantic, is filled to its ut- 
most capacity with water brought to its utmost 
point of compression, for which the only egress 
is at the farther end. Now, if a drop of water is 
forced into the nearer end, most persons find it 
difficult to conceive that a drop must be simul- 
taneously passing out at the other, and reluc- 
tantly yield their assent to the argument that 
otherwise the tube must at one time hold more 
than it possibly can hold. 

As has already been intimated, the idea that 
Cause may or must precede the effect is also en- 
gendered by our applying the word Cause to 
that which as yet is not, but which may become. 
Cause. A moving body becomes actual cause 
of motion in another body at the instant it im- 
pinges or acts upon it ; but for this there must 
be a body in motion, and which may have been 
in motion prior to the effect. If, at the com- 
mencement of its motion, the moving body was 
already in contact with that which it moves, we 
regard the effect as simultaneous with the initial 
movement — with the action of its cause. So, 
also, in regard to causal effort, there must be a 
being capable of effort, the existence of which 
being may precede the effort and the effect. In 
either case, there always is or may be a potential 
cause preceding the effect, and this fact, by a 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 37 

confused association of the ideas, leads us to re- 
gard the action of cause as necessarily prior to its 
effect. 

The principal reason, however, for our habit 
of thinking of the action of cause as prior to its 
effect, I think, is the fact that the effects remain 
fixed till they are changed by the subsequent 
action of some cause, and hence enduring after 
the action of their cause, they occupy in thought 
a later position. We have to identify the action 
of the cause with the very beginning of the 
effect, and cannot even make it co-existent with 
the subsequent enduring existence of the effect, 
but precedent to it, and hence come to regard it 
as wholly prior to such existence. 

The logical order of thought, too, requires that 
we should first think that without which the 
other would not be ; otherwise there is an hiatus 
in our thoughts. 

These views indicate that our notion of Cause 
does not of necessity include any idea of succes- 
sion, but only the immediate action of a sufiicient 
power at the moment, and so far militate against 
those definitions of it which involve the idea of 
succession. 

A difiiculty may here be suggested in regard 
to the flow or progress of events in time, if they 
are all simultaneous with their causes. This 
difficulty cannot arise as to intelligent effort, for, 
in regard to it, periods of non-action may con- 



38 ON CAUSATION AND 

tinually intervene ; but if there are series of 
events and material phenomena, each of which 
is in turn effect and cause, it may be difficult to 
see how any time could elapse between the first 
and the last of the series. This seems to concern 
your theory, rather than mine. You will, per- 
haps, say that this difficulty disproves my posi- 
tion, as to the simultaneousness of the effect 
with its cause. If, however, as I suppose, these 
series of events, or material changes, are always 
effected through the medium of motion, it need 
not trouble us, for there is precisely the same 
difficulty in regard to our conception of the mo- 
tion of matter from point to point, there being 
no space, or length, between any two consecutive 
points, and yet the body in motion gets from one 
end of a long line to the other, and, in this case, 
this difficulty just neuh-alizes the other. It may, 
perhaps, be compared to our having an irredu- 
cible surd on one side of an equation, and finding 
the same also on the other side ; or perhaps I 
may make my meaning more clear, thus : A 
workman, in laying a pavement, wants a block 
of a particular shape, say a square circle ; he can 
neither conceive of nor describe such a figure, 
but he finds among his material a block wdiich, 
though equally inconceivable and indescribable, 
exactly fills the space, and uses it accordingly. 
So, even if we cannot conceive how motion in- 
volves the idea of time, we may perceive that 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 39 

if it does so it may be a means of conveying 
events which depend upon it, through time also. 

7. From this statement of my own views, let 
me now turn to yours, as I find them in your 
" Review of Sir William Hamilton," and in Book 
III. Chap. I. of your " System of Logic." 

In the latter I notice two expressions in the 
form of definitions, though not distinctly an- 
nounced as such, viz., § 3. " The real Cause is 
the whole of these antecedents ;" and again, "The 
Cause then, philosophically speaking, is the sum 
total of the conditions, positive and negative, 
taken totj-ether ; the whole of the contino-encies 
of every description, which being realized, the 
consequent invariably follows." The context 
shows that you use the terms, " antecedents " 
and " conditions " as convertible terms ; and 
hence there is no diversity in the two expres- 
sions. To these your definition in § 5, " We 
may define, therefore, the Cause of a phenom- 
enon to be the antecedent, or concurrence of 
antecedents, upon which it is invariably and un- 
cmiditionally consequent," only adds the '•'^uncon- 
ditionally" which, if I rightly apprehend your 
view of it, simply means, when the sum of the 
antecedents which the phenomenon invariably 
follows is not so changed^ either by addition or 
subtraction, that the phenomenon does not fol- 
low ; which still, as at first, only amounts to say- 
ino; that the Cause is the antecedents which the 



40 ON CAUSATION AND 

plienomenon does invariably follow, and not the 
antecedents which it does not follow; and this 
seems to be your conclusion when you say, § 6, 
"I have no objection to define a Cause, the as- 
semblage of phenomena which occurring, some 
other phenomenon invariably commences or has 
its origin." In this you merge the terms ante- 
cedents and conditions in the one term phenom- 
ena, confirming the idea that you use them as 
convertible, or at least embrace in the former all 
co-existing conditions. Cause, then, as you de- 
fine it, is the assemblage of phenomena which 
some other phenomenon invariably follows ; or 
the assemblage of phenomena which invariably 
precede the eflfect. 

These formulas seem only to indicate a mode 
of experimentally finding what are causes, and 
not to explain or define, either our idea, or the 
nature of Cause ; and the mode thus indicated 
seems to me fallacious ; i. e., would indicate as 
Cause what does not correspond to our idea of 
it. For instance, life is a necessary antecedent 
condition to death, and all experiment would 
show that death could not occur, or be a conse- 
quent, without life being one of the pre-existing 
conditions or antecedents. But is life, in any 
proper sense, the cause of death? It is true 
that any causes of change must always be found 
among the existing conditions, and in some sense 
among the antecedent conditions ; but it does not 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 41 

follow that the converse of the proposition — 
that all antecedent conditions are among the 
causes — is also true. If this is not already 
obvious, I hope to make it more clear and cer- 
tain that they are not before I finish this letter. 

But the definitions you have given do not 
eliminate causes from other antecedents, which, 
though necessary to the effect, have no agency in 
producing the effect. They do not discriminate 
between those iiassive conditions, or mere states 
of things which have no tendency to change 
themselves, but are the conditions to be acted 
upon — to be changed — and the active agency 
which acts upon and changes them. In short, 
they do not distinguish what produces from what 
merely precedes change ; nor, when applied to 
potential cause, between the susceptibility or lia- 
bility of a thing to be acted upon, and a faculty 
of acting. Putty may be moulded, it cannot 
mould. 

In the passive but pre-requisite conditions or 
antecedents, there may be no tendency to that 
change by which the consequent is distinguished 
from its antecedents, and which change of the 
conditions is the effect, or the thing caused : 
there is no tendency in darkness to become, lead 
to, or produce light ; but the change from dark- 
ness to light pre-supposes the existence of dark- 
ness, and as an existence which is an indispensa- 
ble condition or antecedent to the effect marked 



42 ON CAUSATION AND 

in the change from darkness to light, and hence, 
under your definition, darkness must be a cause, 
or at least one of the con-causes of this change. 

You directly assert and argue that all the 
conditions are embraced in the cause. You say, 
" Nothing can better show the absence of any 
scientific ground for the distinction between the 
cause of a phenomenon and its conditions, than 
the capricious manner in which we select, from 
among the conditions, that which we choose to 
denominate the Cause." The common mode of 
speaking to which you here allude, I think mere- 
ly indicates a loose mode of expression, growing 
out of an uncertainty as to what the cause in 
the particular case is, complicated with a vague- 
ness in the generic idea of Cause. In a case 
you mention, this vagueness arises from an un- 
certainty as to whether the cause of the stone's 
falling is in the stone, or in the earth, or in both. 

But from this vagueness you infer that "it 
will probably be admitted, w^ithout longer dis- 
cussion, that no one of the conditions has more 
claim to that title (of Cause) than another, and 
that the real Cause of the phenomenon is the 
assemblage of all its conditions." 

This is to accept in philosophy the vague 
terms and crude, unreconciled notions of com- 
mon discourse, and upon the ground that they 
are thus common. If twenty men attribute a 
phenomenon to twenty different agencies, it is 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 43 

no indication that it may be properly attributed 
to the whole twenty agencies combined ; but, on 
the contrary, the diversity in their statements 
tends to throw doubt upon the whole. Twenty 
falsities do not make one ao;o;reo;ate truth. Con- 
versely, to my mind, nothing can better show 
the absence of any scientific ground for combin- 
ing all the conditions, and deeming them the 
Cause, than that you find no better reason for 
it than this common notion and mode of speech. 

The above reasoning I think is properly appli- 
cable to the definitions I have quoted ; but you 
subsequently seek a rectification of them to meet 
the difficulty which arises from such cases as that 
of darkness, regarded as a necessary condition or 
invariable antecedent to the change from dark- 
ness to light. You say, " When we define the 
Cause of anything (in the only sense in which 
the present inquiry has any concern with Causes), 
to be the antecedent which it invariably follows, 
we do not use this phrase as exactly synonymous 
with the antecedent, which it invariably has fol- 
lowed in our past experience. 

" Such a mode of viewing Causation would be 
liable to the objection, very plausibly urged by 
Dr. Reid, namely, that, according to this doctrine, 
night must be the cause of day, and day the 
cause of night, since these phenomena have 
invariably succeeded one another from the be- 
ginning of the world. But it is necessary to our 



44 ON CAUSATION AND 

using the word Cause, that we should believe, 
not only that the antecedent always has been 
followed by the consequent, but that as long as 
the present constitution of things endures, it 
always will be so ; and this would not be true of 
day and night. We do not believe that night 
will be followed by day under any imaginable 
circumstance, only that it will be so, provided 
the sun rises above the horizon." But you have 
already said (and as I understand yoM in the 
same only sense as the above), that the only no- 
tion of a Cause is such a notion as can be gained 
from experience. Now, surely, the notion of 
what will he, as distinguished from what has been, 
cannot be gained from experience ; and, further, 
we do believe that, " while the present constitu- 
tion of things endures," night ivill invariably pre- 
cede day, and hence this rectification of the defi- 
nition does not meet the difficulty ; for still, under 
it, as we believe that night not only always has 
invariably preceded, " but as long as the present 
constitution of things endures" always wdll so 
precede it, night is still the cause of day. In 
§ 3, you have suggested a point which might 
obviate this difficulty. It may be said that ex- 
perience shows that night is not of itself a suffi- 
cient antecedent to the consequent day, inas- 
much as the night lasts for a greater or less 
period of time, and does not change to day till 
another antecedent is added to it — that of sun- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 45 

rise. But, in connection with this suggestion, 
you insist that this last condition (the rising of 
the sun in the above instance), " which completes 
the tale, and brings about the effect without fur- 
ther delay, .... has really no closer relation to 
the eifect than any of the other conditions has. 
The production of the consequent requires that 
they should all exist immediately previous, though 
not that they should all begin to exist immediate- 
ly previous. The statement of the Cause is in- 
complete, unless, in some shape or other, we 
introduce all the conditions." 

Undoubtedly, as pre-requisite to the change, 
the conditions to be changed must all exist, as 
well as the agency which changes them ; but I 
question the expediency, or even propriety, of 
thus confounding in the one word Cause, the 
passive conditions which resist the change, with 
the active agency which changes them. In re- 
gard to this case of change from night to day, 
our experience is, that the change of the darkness 
which characterizes night to a degree of light 
approximating indefinitely near to that of day 
does invariably precede the rising of the sun, 
and we believe that this not only always has, 
but that, " as long as the present constitution of 
things endures," it always will so precede it ; and 
hence, under your definition, the degree of light 
so approximating would be the Cause, or, at least, 
a Cause of the rising of the sun. 



46 ON CAUSATION AND 

Is not some other element needed to make 
out the distinction between antecedents which 
are Causes of change, and those which have 
no tendency to produce, but w^hich resist such 
change ? The existence of the antecedents, as 
they are, always precludes the consequents, for 
it is only by some change in the antecedents 
that the consequents come into existence. 

Darkness is a condition which excludes light, 
and requires the power of some active agency to 
change it to light; and the same is true of all 
other fixed conditions, the change of which to 
their consequents is the effect for which a suffi- 
cient exercise of power — a Cause — is required. 
This sufficient power may be either the action 
or effort of an intelligent being, or that of mat- 
ter in motion, or both. If matter in motion is a 
distinct force, intelligent being may use it to ac- 
complish its own ends. It may put it in motion, 
or direct its motion for this object, or it may so 
change the conditions to be acted upon, that mat- 
ter already in motion, and directed in its motion, 
will accomplish the desired object. In the case 
of sunrise, we may suppose that the Cause pro- 
ducing light is always acting, but that there is 
some hinderance or opposing force which it can- 
not overcome ; and in such case any power which 
removes the obstruction indirectly causes light to 
succeed darkness, though it does not itself pro- 
duce the light. The change to light is the con- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 47 

sequence of the change which power has pro- 
duced. 

In this view we may say that the motion of 
the earth is the Cause of the change from dark- 
ness to hght, and it is thus referred to one of the 
two only sources of power of which, in my view, 
we have any knowledge or real conception. 

As no one can see the sun before it rises, so 
far as direct individual experience goes, we might 
as logically attribute the whole phenomena to the 
other of these two powers — to intelligent effort, 
creating, or lighting up, a sun each morning, and 
annihilating or extinguishing it each evening; 
or, dispensing with the intervention of matter, 
regard the successive sensations of light and 
darkness as the direct effect of such efforts. 

I believe that you have stated no case of 
Causation which is not referable to one or the 
other of these two causative powers — these only 
modes of activity or change. 

8. We return now to the question, whether our 
notion of Cause as derived from intelligent effort 
has been properly superseded. The substitutes 
are various. First, the generalization of exter- 
nal phenomena, as gravitation. Second, the phe- 
nomena themselves, either fixed, as the earth, 
sun, moon, and matter generally ; or flowing, as 
events and circumstances which follow each other. 
In this case the antecedent phenomena are deemed 
the Causes of those which follow. Third, the as- 



48 ON CAUSATION AND 

sertion either that there is no Causal power or 
Force, but only a uniform succession of conse- 
quents to antecedents, or that this uniformity 
is itself the Cause. 

In regard to the first, or generalization, of 
which I take gravitation as the type, there seems 
to be much latitude of thous-ht as to the causal 
power ; it being sometimes assumed to be in the 
name, sometimes to inhere in the generic facts 
to which the name is applied, and sometimes at- 
tributed to a mere hypothetical unknown power, 
the existence of which the generic facts are sup- 
posed to indicate, or perhaps to embody. 

As to the first of these divisions, we habitually 
use such terms as attraction, repulsion, gravita- 
tion, &c., to classify phenomenal effects ; and 
hence, loosely associating these effects with such 
terms, and these again with some vague notions 
of power which this association engenders, we 
come to speak of these mere words as Causes of 
effects which are properly referred to them only 
for the purpose of classification. In this there is, 
no doubt, often confusion of thought as well as 
carelessness of speech ; but that there can be no 
causal power in the mere name, is too obvious to 
require argument. Such power can no more 
inhere in " Gravitation," " Laws of Nature," " In- 
variability of Sequence," than in Equinox. Jehosh- 
aphat, or Abracadabra. 

To predicate the causal power of the general- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 49 

ized facts would make them collectively the Cause 
of themselves individually, and make them act on 
the past, or act as Cause before they existed ; for 
there could be no collection of facts before the 
existence of the individual facts of which such 
collection must be made up. 

The last division in the first category — the 
hypothesis of an unknown power indicated by 
the generic facts — is perhaps the most natural 
of the three, and is in some respects analogous to 
that by which we attribute all the eflfects which 
are obviously beyond our own power to that of 
a superior intelligence. 

It also has its type in the ancient mythology, 
and in the rude notions of our Indian tribes, who 
conceive a different manitou for each variety of 
phenomena — one for storms, another for cata- 
racts, &c. Science has extended the rude gener- 
alizations of these children of the forest, and 
embraced large classes of facts under the juris- 
diction of each of its manitous, or hypothetical 
powers. 

When Sir William Hamilton says, "Fate or 
Necessity, without the existence of a God, might 
account for the phenomena of matter," he must 
suppose that these terms either possess or repre- 
sent some imaginary power capable of creating 
or producing the phenomena. This is also some- 
times predicated of Chance. 

The notion of a purely hypothetical Cause 
4 



50 ON CAUSATION AND 

cannot properly displace that innate knowledge 
we have of power by intelligent effort, which is 
confirmed by constant experience in its manifes- 
tations, or even that extension of this innate 
idea, by which we attribute all efforts to which 
human agency is inadequate to a greater power 
of the same kind — to an intelligent being, whose 
power is of necessity presumed to be adequate to 
the production of the observed phenomena ; nor 
has such an hypothesis as strong claims to our 
acceptance, as that notion of power which we ac- 
quire from the phenomena of matter in motion, 
and the consequences which we observe, or de- 
duce from it. 

It is perhaps worthy of note, as throwing light 
on the natural idea of Cause, that the manitou 
of the Indians, as well as the ancient divinities, 
were spirit-causes, while the hypothetical Causes 
to which Science has led some of her votaries, 
seem to be mainly, if not wholly, material. Have 
these their primitive type in Fetichism ? 

9. The next proposed substitute is that of the 
phenomena themselves. These, you think, are 
more properly deemed Cause than either the 
generalizations or the hypothetical powers pred- 
icated of them, which I have just considered. 
Touching the question, "What is the Cause 
which makes a stone fall ? " you say, " The 
stone therefore is concerned as the patient, and 
the earth (or according to the common and most 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 51 

unphilosophical practice, some occult quality of 
the earth), is represented as the agent or Cause." 
Again, " This class of considerations leads us to a 
conception which we shall find of great impor- 
tance in the interpretation of nature — that of a 
permanent Cause or original natural agent. . . . 
The sun, the earth, and planets, with their vari- 
ous constituents, — air, water, and the other dis- 
tinguishable substances, whether simple or com- 
pound, of which nature is made up, — are such 
permanent Causes. These have existed, and the 
effects or consequences which they were fitted to 
produce have taken place (as often as the other 
conditions of the production met) from the very 
beginning of our experience." 

Again, " The permanent Causes are not always 
objects. They are sometimes events, that is to 
say, periodical cycles of events, that being the 
only mode in which events can possess the prop- 
erty of permanence. Not only, for instance, is 
the earth itself a permanent Cause, but the 
earth's rotation is so too. It is a Cause which 
has produced from the earliest period (by the 
aid of other necessary conditions) the succession 
of day and night, while, as we can assign no 
Cause for the rotation itself, it is entitled to be 
ranked as a primeval Cause." These quotations, 
I think, give your idea of permanent Causes, em- 
bracing in it the fixed material existences " of 
which nature is made up," and also flowing 



52 ' ON CAUSATION AND 

events — all the phenomena, at least all of the 
time being. 

The flowing events are, in fact, always con- 
nected with what I have stated to be the only 
Causes of which we have any idea — the exercise 
of a sufficient power in the effort of an intelligent 
being ; or in the movement of matter, either as 
put in motion by such being, or as a co-existing 
and co-ordinate activity. A case you mention — 
that of the rotation of the earth — is (as I be- 
lieve all conceivable cases of material Causation 
will be found to be) embraced in one of the 
forms of the latter category. 

As appears from a former quotation, you hold 
that all Causes are only phenomena, and you 
make no distinction between the phenomena 
which constitute the Cause, and those which con- 
stitute the effects. The former differ from the 
latter, or consequents, to the extent, and only to 
the extent, of the change effected. The Cause is 
not in the consequent, for this would make it the 
Cause of its own existence, and imply that it 
acted upon the past or before itself existed, and 
hence the Causal Force of mere phenomena, if 
any, must inhere in the antecedents alone. But 
among those antecedents you also recognize no 
real distinction between the things changed and 
that which changes them. You say, "The dis- 
tinction between agent and patient is merely 
verbal. Patients are always agents ... all the 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 53 

positive conditions of the phenomena are alike 
agents, ahke active." * In a case you mention, 
it is consistent with your notions of " permanent 
Causes," and that all the antecedent conditions 
are Causes, to say that sulphur, charcoal, and 
nitre are the Cause of gunpowder. The only 
things raised by this statement are the elements, 
first uncombined, and then combined, leaving out 
of view the object of inquiry, which is to ascer- 
tain the agency or Cause of the change of the 
separate elements into gunpowder. 

In these views Sir William Hamilton seems to 
agree with you. He says, " Water is as much 
the Cause of evaporation as heat. But heat and 
water together are the Causes of the evaporation. 
Nay, there is a third Cause, which we have for- 
gotten — the atmosphere." f Here he has predi- 
cated Cause of chano;e to the water which resists 
the change, and also, though perhaps uninten- 
tionally, to that which hinders, — to the atmos- 
phere, — the fact being that evaporation is pro- 
duced with greater facility in vacuum. I shall 
presently attempt to prove that nothing, after it 
has become a permanent or fixed existence, can 
jDossibly be a Cause of any change whatever. 

As germane to these views, you say, "The 
Cause of the stone's falling is its being within 
the sphere of the earth's attraction." It would 
obviously be equally proper to say, the Cause of 

* MiU's Logic, Book III. Chap. VII. § 4. f Ibid- § ^0- 



54 ON CAUSATION AND 

the apple's being plucked was its being within my 
reach; but it might have been within my reach 
for all time, and not have been plucked. The 
fact tJiat it is within reach has no power, no ten- 
dency to pluck, but is only a condition to a suc- 
cessful effort to that end. In this case, we can re- 
fer the effect to a known causal power — to effort. 
In the case of the falling stone we cannot, and 
therefore content ourselves with merely classify- 
ing it, with other like cases, under the term grav- 
itation. We refer the case of plucking the apple 
to Cause by effort, and attempts have been made 
to reduce the phenomena of gravitation to the 
only other activity or conceivable active power 
— matter in motion. To one or other of these 
as causal power we always seek to trace any 
change. 

You have also some expressions which imply 
that the ivhole past must be regarded as the causal 
antecedent of each phenomenon as it occurs. For 
instance, " The whole of the present facts are the 
infallible result of all past facts, and more imme- 
diately of all the facts which existed at the mo- 
ment previous.* The real Cause is the whole of 
these antecedents." You seem to make some ex- 
ceptions to this, e. g., when you say, " If the sun 
ceased to rise . . . night might be eternal. On 
the other hand, if the sun is above the horizon, 

* Mill's Logic, Book III. Chap. VII. § 1 ; Ibid. Book III. Chap. 
I. §3. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 55 

his light not extinct, and no opaque body be- 
tween us and him, we believe firmly that . . . 
this combination of antecedents will be followed 
by the consequent day ; . . . and that, if the 
same combination had always existed, it would 
always have been day, quite independently of 
night as a previous condition. Therefore it is 
that we do not call night the Cause, and there- 
fore the condition, of day." * It must not be for- 
gotten that it is not the continued existence of 
the day, but its heginning to he, that requires to 
be accounted for by a causal antecedent. That 
which already exists will continvie to exist if 
there is no Cause of change. The postulate of 
the necessitarian argument from Cause and 
effect, as you state it, is this : " It is a univer- 
sal truth that everything which has a begin- 
ning has a Cause." What we really seek, in 
this case, is the Cause of the change from night 
to day, and to this change night is a necessary 
antecedent or condition. Hence, in your view, 
and that of Sir William Hamilton also, night is 
a Cause of day, and the exception seems not to 
be well taken. 

To the postulate, or to your statement of it, as 
just quoted, I do not know that there is any dis- 
sent ; but, in your view of Cause, does it amount 
to anything more than an assertion of the truism, 
that everything the existence of which does not 

* Mill's Logic, Book III. Chap. V. § 4. 



56 ON CAUSATION AND 

date so far back as something else does, i e., as far 
back as that which had no beginning, had some- 
thing before it — had antecedents ? The ele- 
ment of power to produce the change involved 
in a beginning is still lacking. 

I have already not only admitted, but offered 
proof, that if there are any unintelligent Causes, 
their action must of necessity be uniform ; and as 
you assert this of all Causes, we agree in this as 
to those which are unintelligent, and this leaves 
no room, as between us, to question the applica- 
tion to them of the rule, that the same Causes 
of necessity produce the same effects, which is 
thus involved in Causation by material or other 
unintelligent forces. 

Now, if the whole aggregate antecedents are 
the Cause of any effect, then, as at each instant, 
the whole antecedents are the same at every 
point of space, the effects should be everywhere 
the same. To this it may be plausibly replied, 
that, the conditions acted upon being different at 
different places, different results may follow from 
the action of the same Cause. 

In the first place, however, it must be borne 
in mind that, as these various conditions must 
exist before they can be acted upon, they must 
themselves, in the view we are now considering, 
be a part of the antecedents which make up the 
Cause. You explicitly assert that all the con- 
ditions are included in the Cause. The whole 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 57 

past being thus combined in one Cause, acting 
upon a perfectly blank and void, and therefore 
homogeneous, future, the effect would be the 
same throughout the whole length and breadth 
of its action. Again, admitting that the same 
causes, acting upon different conditions, may pro- 
duce different effects, it can hardly be asserted 
by the advocates of the rule that the same causes 
necessarily produce the same effects, that the ac- 
tion of the same cause can itself be different; for' 
then this different action upon the same condi- 
tions would produce different effects, thus dis- 
proving the rule. Now, the whole past, being 
embodied in one Cause, must have one certain 
specific action, and that action either (being suf- 
ficient) produces an effect, or (being insufficient) 
produces no effect. If it produces an effect, then 
this effect is added to the aggregate events of 
the past, so far changing the aggregate Cause ; 
and a past Cause, which has once acted, never can 
again act as the same Cause, for this additional 
effect or event must ever remain a part of the 
whole past; and hence there can be no practical 
application of the rule, that the same causes of 
necessity produce the same effect, and on the 
other hand, if the action of this one aggregate 
Cause (being insufficient) produces no effect, then, 
as there can be no change in the Cause (and none 
in the conditions upon which it acted), the Cause 
would, of course, remain the same Cause, and its 



58 ON CAUSATION AND 

action being the same and upon the same con- 
ditions, the result must be the same, that is, no 
effect, and there would be an end of all change, 
and everything would remain quiescent in the 
state in which this insufficiency of Cause found it. 

If it now be said that the failure of this cause 
to produce any effect by its action is such a new 
event or condition that it can, as a consequence 
of it, act in some other manner, then, there being 
no change external to it, and nothing to change 
itself except the negative fact of non-effect, which 
can have no influence upon anything not cogni- 
zant of it, it follows that the Cause must be intel- 
ligent, and, as such, capable of devising or selects 
ing some new mode of action which will avoid 
the deficiency of that before tried, and found to 
be ineffective. The Cause already embracing the 
whole past, nothing could be added to it from 
what already existed ; being ineffective, no new 
existence has been added to it; and if, undel- 
these conditions, it changes its action, it must be 
self-directing, accommodating its action to cir- 
cumstances which must be known to itself as a 
prerequisite to such accommodation. It must be 
intelligent Cause. 

The whole of the prior state never can occur 
again, for the present is already added to it, and 
if, like a circulating series of decimals, the conse- 
quent of this whole past should be to reproduce 
and continually repeat the same series ; and even 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 69 

though the observation of this uniformity, in the 
successive order of events, should enable us to 
predict the whole future, still it would not prove 
that the producing power was in the past circum- 
stances. It would only prove the uniformity 
upon which the prediction was founded, and not 
the cause of that uniformity which still might be 
the uniform action of some intelligent active 
agent, who, perceiving some reason for adhering 
to this order, and having the present power, con- 
tinually repeated it. Much less could it prove 
that power not free. The mere observed order 
of succession, uniform or otherwise, would not 
include a knowledge of the power that produced 
this uniformity, nor the manner of its doing it. 
To find this we should need to compare the effects 
with those of some known power in action, as 
those of intelligent effort or of matter in motion. 
Nor would this supposed dependence of the pres- 
ent on the past be a case of the same causes pro- 
ducing the same effects; for at each repetition 
of the effect the whole prior state, which is assumed 
to be the Cause, is different, the effect of each 
" prior state " acting as Cause being continually 
added, and if there comes a time when there is 
no effect, then there never can be any further 
effect or change, for there can then be no differ- 
ence in this " prior state " or Cause, and of course 
no variation in the consequent — no effect. 
And if, as you say, " in the general uniformity 



60 ON CAUSATION AND 

.... this collective order is made up of particu- 
lar sequences obtaining invariably among the 
separate parts," then the foregoing positions ap- 
ply to each of these separate parts or longitudi- 
nal sections of the whole. 

Your position, that in this " invariable order of 
succession," as in " the general uniformity of the 
course of nature, this web is composed of sepa- 
rate fibres, this collective order is made up of 
particular sequences obtaining invariably among 
these separate parts," avoids some of the difficul- 
ties which arise from embracing the whole past 
in one Cause producing one sequent aggregate 
effect. In this view, however, there would still 
be no room for the application of the rule of uni- 
formity in Causation ; for if any one of these 
causal fibres becomes insufficient, it could, under 
this rule, only repeat its insufficient action, until 
the conditions of its action were so changed by 
the other fibres as to give it efficiency ; and then 
you hold that these changed conditions make a 
portion of the Cause, which, of course, is not then 
the same Cause which before acted, and with re- 
gard to iho^Q fibres which do produce effects, their 
effects being immediately added to their past 
Causes, they never can again act as the same 
Cause. 

The division of the invariable order of succes- 
sion into separate fibres, with the law that the 
same causes must produce the same effects, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 61 

necessitates the hypothesis of a plurality of Causes 
from the origin of existence ; for no difference 
in the conditions of such fibres could begin to be 
till there was a difference in the producing or 
causative agencies. Or if it be said that in the 
beginning there was a difference in the conditions 
of these fibres, then, under your view, the con- 
ditions being themselves Cause, a plurality of 
Causes must have always existed. If a theory 
of the universe can be worked out at all upon 
this plan, it seems to me it would still not only 
violate the law of parsimony, but in view of the 
unity everywhere manifested would, in point of 
simplicity, compare as unfavorably with that 
which attributes all original Causative power to 
one intelligent being with a want for change or 
variety, or for the exercise of its powers, and 
which can design new efforts for new objects, as 
that of Ptolemy or Tycho Brahe does with the 
Copernican system. 

The fact that the Causative powers of the for- 
mer plan also are unintelligent, shows a retrograde 
movement in ideas, carrying us farther back than 
the mythology of the Greeks, or the rude no- 
tions of our Indian tribes, and landing us sub- 
stantially in Fetichism. Though the time is 
past in which mere power was deemed the 
proper object of worship, still, if we believed 
that all the beneficent and sesthetic conditions 
of existence were caused by material phenomena 



62 ON CAUSATION AND 

and events, we could hardly fail, as rational and 
emotional beings, to adore them. 

10. By " the existences of which nature is 
made up," I understand you to mean those of 
the material nature, or universe, as you mention 
these, and these only. Matter is most promi- 
nently distinguished from spirit in being unin- 
telligent ; a consequence of which, as already 
shown, is an inability to direct its own move- 
ments; and as all movement must have some 
direction, it cannot move itself It cannot itself 
be the moving power, and yet something else 
give direction to the motion ; and hence, as all 
changes in matter are through the medium of 
motion in it, matter in a fixed condition, i e., in 
a state of rest, cannot of itself become Cause. It 
must first be put in motion, or be acted upon, by 
something else, either by spirit power, or by some 
matter already in motion. But in regard to all 
existences, events, and circumstances, which are 
unintelligent, and not self-active, or any combina- 
tion of them which have assumed a fixed exist- 
ence, whether for a longer or shorter time, they 
cannot of themselves be the cause of any subse- 
quent change. 

In " Freedom of Mind," &c., I have essayed a 
demonstration that nothing, merely in virtue of 
its existence, can be a Cause, and I would now 
more especially urge, that if any fixed material 
and inactive things can be the actual Cause of 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 63 

change, then, as before shown, such change, or 
effect, must be of necessity, and must also be 
simultaneous with, the first existence of such Cau- 
sative Power. For existence being its only ele- 
ment of Cause, it must have been Cause at the 
instant it began to exist. It must then have 
been as a sufficient power in action, and of 
course have immediately produced its necessary 
effect. 

But the change to be wrought is in these very 
existences, or antecedents, to convert them into 
the consequents ; and as this change must thus be 
of necessity and simultaneous with the existence 
of these antecedents, such existence .cannot be- 
come fixed for any time whatever. Having in 
themselves a power of self-change, with no faculty 
of self-control, or of selecting time or object, this 
power must produce its necessary effect at the 
moment of coming into existence, and the ante- 
cedents in which it both inheres and acts would 
be metamorphosed into the consequents in the 
very act of coming into existence, and hence 
phenomena with such inhering Causative power 
never could become fixed or permanent exist- 
ence, and, conversely, there could be no such 
fixed or permanent Causal existence. This is 
very generally recognized. As soon as we find 
that night can for a time exist without producing 
day, we perceive that it cannot be the cause of 
day. 



64 ON CAUSATION AND 

The Cause, then, must be something distinct 
from the fixed phenomena, which constitute the 
antecedents to be changed. It cannot, under 
your view, be said that this Cause is some new 
phenomenon, the existence of which, being added 
to the previous sum of the conditions, instanta- 
neously converts them into the consequent ; for 
any new phenomenon is itself the consequent 
which, in this same view, the former fixed ante- 
cedents must have caused ; and, as already 
shown, they cannot be the cause of any new 
existence or phenomenon. 

The fixed or stable events being excluded from 
Causation, w-hat is left ? Nothing in the whole 
range of our knowledge, but activity in one or 
the other of its two and only forms — mind in 
action, and matter in motion ; the latter either 
as a consequence of the former, or as an inde- 
pendent co-ordinate force. Either of these may 
act upon and change the existing conditions as 
nothing else can. 

Imagine ever so many fixed conditions or phe- 
nomena, — they cannot change themselves. The 
foundation, the brick, and the mortar may all 
exist in convenient proximity, but the wall will 
not build or be built upward, till some activity 
in the form of an intelligent agent, or of matter 
in motion, and properly directed, is brought to 
bear upon them. 

If darkness is the only condition or antecedent, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 65 

it cannot change itself to light, or so vary its own 
position that the sun will change it. When to 
this condition of darkness you add the rotation 
of the earth as a cause of sunrise, you bring in 
one of the two elements to which alone we at- 
tach the idea of power, and it is the confounding 
of the non-causal phenomena with the causal that 
I protest against, as leading to confusion and er- 
roneous conclusions as to the nature and function 
of Cause. 

It may, in conformity to a common idea, or 
rather verbal formula, be suggested, that such 
permanent material existences act in conformity 
to certain laws, in virtue of which they may be 
fixed and passive for a time, and then themselves- 
start into activity. 

But this government by law, in the most com- 
mon use of the term, implies that the active 
agent conforms itself to the law, which assumes 
that such agent knows the law of its mode and 
manner of action, and the particular time to act,, 
as also that it has the power of self-action ; and 
all agree that such knowledge and power are not 
attributes of material phenomena, or of mere 
events and circumstances. 

The term law is also sometimes used to signify 
a classification of phenomena, and sometimes to 
indicate a mere uniformity of the relation of ante- 
cedents to consequents. The former has already 
been considered, and the latter will be, in its place. 
5 



66 ON CAUSATION AND 

11. We come now to the third substitute, up- 
on the first division of which — that there is no 
Causal power, &c. — I have already made some 
comments in this letter. In a former one (touch- 
ing your review of Comte) I suggested that this 
notion of no cause was a result of the concentra- 
tion of the thought of this age upon material 
science, the great object of which, and that which 
makes it conducive to our comfort, is to ascertain 
the order of succession in external phenomena. 
Hence the physicists have applied themselves 
almost exclusively to the searching out of this 
order, and the convenient classification of the 
uniform results which they discovered. They 
have dealt with things and their changes. Thus 
circumscribed, they have been led, by repeated 
association, to regard the relation of uniformity 
in succession — a mere relation in time — as a 
relation of cause and efiect, and those things 
which uniformly attend and those events which 
uniformly precede an efiect, and even the names 
by which the things, events, or efiects are classi- 
fied, as causes. Having done this, and then per- 
ceiving that there could be no power in these 
inactivities, and that they derived no benefit 
from such hypothetical assumption of power in 
them, they discarded them, and were left with 
no Causal power at all. 

Attributing Causal power to the observed uni- 
formity must be regarded as natural, for. it is 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 67 

common to every stage of empirical knowledge. 
The child will tell you that a stone falls down 
because there is nothing to hold it up ; and ob- 
serving other cases of uniformity, he generalizes, 
and attributes them all to the nature of things, 
or, learning something of scientific classification, 
ascribes the falling of the stone to gravitation as a 
cause. I would now remark that, on the hypoth- 
esis that change may take place without any 
Causal power, all events would spring into exist- 
ence spontaneously and contingently, without 
any of those relations in which intelligent beings 
perceive order and useful adaptation of one thing 
to another. On this hypothesis, if such beings 
could design orderly or beneficial arrangement, 
there could be no power to conform things to 
such design. Even the necessity of the effect 
produced by matter in motion, and of course its 
uniformity, depends upon the existence of some 
power which pertains to matter in motion — 
some force, without which the effect would not 
be necessary. The chances that the rising of 
the sun and the light of day should uniformly 
happen at the same moment, when there was no 
Causal power in the sun to produce the light of 
day, and none in the light of day to produce the 
rising of the sun, and no anterior Causal power 
producing both, would be wholly inappreciable, 
as against the general confusion, which, in the 
absence of such power, would be indicated by 



68 ON CAUSATION AND 

the calculation of chances, and by our ability to 
conceive of such events in any and every order 
of succession, or of co-existence. As a design of 
intelligent being, there could be no " pre-estab- 
lished harmony " if that being had no power to 
conform events to his design. The courses or 
succession of events which are harmoniously re- 
lated, are very limited, while those which are 
not so related are infinite, and in the absence of 
any controlling power, the chance that at any 
moment, and for one time, any such harmony 
would occur, is as one to infinity, and the proba- 
bility that it should be incessantly repeated, 
would be diminished in a compound ratio; so 
that this harmony without design or power, even 
without the additional consideration that it oc- 
curs in a great number and variety of cases, may 
be deemed impossible. 

There must, then, be some power producing 
the uniformity, the existence of which, in the 
flow of events, all admit. To meet this necessity 
of the observed facts, the last hypothesis of our 
category seems to have been devised. It ap- 
pears to fully cover the ground intended, for it 
asserts that the Cause inheres not in the events 
themselves, but in the invariability or uniformity 
of their succession. This is to say, the Cause is in 
the very things it has produced, the existence of 
which is accounted for by this Causal hypothesis ; 
in short, that the Cause is in its own consequent. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 69 

Under this hypothesis, if it be asked why one 
certain event succeeds another certain event, it 
must be replied, because it always does so ; i e., it 
does so on the particular occasion, because it 
does so on all other like occasions. And if in 
any case the cause of this uniformity be asked 
for, as, for instance, why the consequent B always 
succeeds the antecedent A, the answer must still 
be because it always does so ; i e., it always does 
so because it alwa3^s does so ; or shorter, it does 
because it does. Nor will it help the matter to 
say it not only always has been, but we believe 
it always will be so. The generic names of the 
phenomena are now superseded by the phrase 
always does, both traceable to the same observed 
fact of uniformity, and both really making the 
phenomena in a collective form the Causes of 
themselves individually, which again involves the 
idea that the collection existed before the indi- 
viduals of which it is composed. 

12. The idea of Causative power is distinct 
from, and must precede, that of the uniformity 
of its action or its effect. The power which pro- 
duces the effect may be wholly independent of 
any uniformity in its manifestation. It is no less 
Cause the first time it acts, when no uniformity 
can have obtained, and would be no less Cause 
if it varied its action every time it acted. The 
two ideas are not only not identical, but are 
essentially distinct and different. 



To ON CAUSATION AND 

From the conclusion which I reached, that the 
effect is simultaneous with the action of its cause, 
I have already suggested the corollary that our 
idea of Cause is independent of, and separable 
from, that of succession ; and if I was correct in 
saying that the knowledge that we can (through 
motion of matter or otherwise) extend the effects 
of any action beyond the moment of exertion, is 
not essential to our idea of Power, or of Cause, 
we may, from this, also infer that succession is 
not a necessary element in our idea of power or 
of Cause ; and this position, if tenable, takes 
away the whole foundation of those definitions 
of Cause, which rest upon the mere succession 
of consequents to antecedents, invariable, inevi- 
table, or otherwise. 

The idea of the exercise of power is perfect 
and complete in itself, even though, being insuffi- 
cient, there is to it no succession, no conse- 
quence. So, also, the exercise of a sufficient 
power is perfect and complete in itself, even 
though we never should add to it the knowledge 
of the effect or consequent; and admitting the 
succession, which is involved in your definition, 
it comes after the exertion of power,-— after the 
Cause, — and makes no part of it. This idea of 
succession becomes associated with that of Cause, 
from the fact that it is the evidence that the ex- 
ercise of power has been successful, hence, has 
been Cause in producing that succession. In 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 71 

short, the succession of consequents to antece- 
dents does not really enter into our idea, either 
of Power or of Cause, but is only the evidence 
that Cause has existed — that there has been a 
sufficient exercise of power to produce the suc- 
cession, which is the effect, and not the Cause 
which produced it ; but, as such effect, it merely 
indicates that a sufficient power to produce it 
has been exerted. To make the succession in 
any form the Cause of itself is virtually to ignore 
all power in bringing it to pass. If the Cause 
be in the antecedents, then, if the influence of 
motion in extending the effects of former ante- 
cedents be excluded, the Causative antecedents 
must be self-active ; beginning activity in, and 
changing themselves to, their consequents. This 
involves all the difficulties which necessitarians 
find in the self-active power of intelligent beings, 
without having the rational grounds upon which 
this power is predicated of such beings. All 
theories of Causation, when traced to their foun- 
dation, must bring us to something which is al- 
ready active, or that has in itself the ability to 
become so. 

In my system, Spirit-Cause — intelligent be- 
ing, acting as First Cause — can nowhere be dis- 
pensed with; and hence in it must be deemed 
to have always existed — to have had no begin- 
ning. If the ideal theory of the universe — 
a theory, which, in its simplicity, so commends 



72 ON CAUSATION AND ' 

itself to the intellect, and in its grandeur and 
beauty so appeals to our affections — is rejected, 
then matter must also be regarded as a distinct 
entity, co-eternal, in some form, with spirit ; and 
all else, being but changes in the original con- 
ditions of these two, has been subsequent to 
them, and, of course, had a beginning, and ante- 
cedents ; and thus, in this mode, we again reach 
the conclusion that all power must inhere, or, at 
least, have once inhered, in these two things. In 
the original constitution of things, there was, 
consequently, no ground for predicating Causal 
power of events, or of anything which had a 
beginning, nor is there now any necessity for 
such predication. 

It may be thought to be idle to speculate on 
the primordial conditions of existence, from which 
we are removed by infinite time. But the ele- 
ment of time does not wholly shut us out from 
such inquiry. After we have gone back to a 
period from which no knowledge could in any 
way have been transmitted to us, it will make 
no difference how much farther back we go. 
With regard to all the previous eternity, we can 
only judge as to what was by what has since 
been. From secondary causes (or uniform modes 
of God's action now observable), the geologist 
seeks to trace the history of the formation of 
the rocks of our globe, through the mutations 
of a time which it overtasks the imagination to 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 73 

compass ; as the astronomer, with a mightier 
stretch of thought, re-constructs the universe, 
and unfolds the mysteries of creation in its vari- 
ous stages of development. 

And if for all this we rely upon mere observa- 
tion for our facts, and trust that the forces which 
we now detect in such minute proportions in the 
laboratory were then magnificently active in the 
great laboratory of nature, that the principles 
which now apply to the formation of a soap-bub- 
ble then applied to the formation of suns and 
satellites, may we not have as rational and as 
philosophic faith, that the only power which we 
now know that can begin change, and modify 
and direct the material forces in our own little 
sphere, was then also active throughout the 
realms of space — that intelligence, so limited 
in us, in a mightier form, sought, designed, and 
executed, the symmetrical arrangement which 
so harmonizes with our own sentiment of beauty 
and love of order, with our aspirations for the 
sublimely vast, and our admiration of the mi- 
nutely perfect. 

If, for all this, we feel that from the mutations 
of time there may be some incertitude, we still 
know that beyond all this empiricism there are, 
in the serene empyrean of thought, more per- 
vading truths, which no remoteness of time or 
space can efiect. We know that an eternity 
ago, not only were all the angles of a plane 



74 ON CAUSATION AND 

triangle equal to two right angles, but that 
power, truth, justice, goodness, in the abstract, 
were then the same as now ; and in regard to 
these, and other abstract ideas, the intervention 
of time, even if the period be infinite, need make 
no difference to our speculations. 

If the succession of events, and their Causes, is 
ever so distinct, our interest in the study of this 
succession, as a separate object of knowledge, is 
not thereby diminished. Our interest in this 
remains nearly the same, even if we have no 
notion or theory of Causation whatever. As our 
power by effort is innately known, it most con- 
cerns us to learn on what occasions and to what 
ends to apply it, and our action being always to 
influence the future, it especially behooves us to 
know what that future will be, both if we do not, 
and if we do, put forth our efforts to modify it, 
that we may judge between making the effort, 
and not making it. That by observation we 
have found that certain events uniformly succeed 
certain other events, is, then, a fact of great prac- 
tical importance, enabling us to predict or con- 
jecture with more or less of certainty the future 
course of events by which we are liable to be 
affected. But it is thus important only for the 
reason that we have power in ourselves to act 
upon the future, and make it different from 
what, without our efforts, this uniformity in the 
flow of events indicates that it would be. If we 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 75 

had no such Causal power, then this knowledge 
of the uniformity of the succession of certain con- 
sequents to certain antecedents would be of no 
practical importance, and inductive science would 
rank among those which merely furnish a play- 
ground for the intellect, or gratify an idle curi- 
osity. It may be said that we only add our 
efforts to the other antecedents ; but if we really 
do this, and thus change the subsequent events, 
or the order of them, we act as Cause, modifying 
the effects of all Causes extrinsic to us, though 
the relation of consequents to the antecedents, 
which embrace these efforts, is not less uniform 
than in other cases. Except in regard to instinc- 
tive actions, it is because of the uniformity in the 
effects of effort, that we can know how to influ- 
ence the future. This uniformity may arise 
from an occult connection, making it a necessity ; 
but this does not affect the question of our free- 
dom in making the effort. 

These questions of Causation, which seSm to 
me to underlie those of Freedom, have taken so 
much more time and space than I expected, that 
I must, at least for the present, omit what, when 
I began to write, I intended to say upon the 
problems of the Will, and the differences in our 
views upon them. I hope, however, to resume 
that subject a few months hence, and then to be 
able to condense my thoughts better than, in the 
haste of a preparation for an unexpected journey. 



76 ON CAUSATION AND FREEDOM IN WILLING. 

I have been able to do in this epistle. But that 
you say, in a recent letter, you are about to pre- 
pare a third edition of your "Review of Sir 
William Hamilton," and to notice some objec- 
tions to it, I should hardly have thought it fair 
to trouble you with my notes in so crude a form. 

Yours, very truly, 

R G. HAZARD. 

To J. Stuart Mill, Esq., M. P. 



APPENDIX, 



On receiving this letter, Mr. Mill hastily replied to some 
of the positions taken in it. I will now notice only one of 
his objections, and that for the purpose of correcting what 
appears to be a very common error in another department 
of thought. In respect to the others, I will wait that more 
mature examination of this and the subsequent letter which 
Mr. Mill has kindly promised. 

The correction alluded to appears in the following corre- 
spondence. I am glad to have my view confirmed by one 
whose authority will be so generally recognized as that of 
Professor Rood, and especially, as since these letters were 
written, some physicists have suggested that the point had 
been too long settled to be now disturbed. 



Peace Dale, K. I., February 4, 1867. 
My dear Sir : You may recollect that, in a letter 
(printed for private circulation) which I addressed to J. 
Stuart Mill upon the subject of our differences in regard to 
the " Freedom of Mind in Willing," involving our notions 
of " Causation," I essayed a demonstration, that an effect 
must be simultaneous with the action of its cause, and thence 
argued that succession did not enter into our idea of Cause, 
and that, therefore, the definitions of it given by him, and 
many others, which make Cause, only a uniform succession of 
consequents to antecedents, were invalid. To this point he 

(77) 



78 APPENDIX. 

replied, " Then sunrise is not the cause of day, for the actual 
sunrise has taken place for some time without producing 
day, viz., the time necessary for a ray of light to travel over 
the intervening distance." If this were true, it vpould not 
affect my position. This is obvious when we correct the 
expi-ession, and say it is our reaching the light, and not the 
the position of the sun (absolute cr relative) which causes 
day. But, as I was about thus to reply, it occurred to me 
that this travelling of the light made no diiference ; but that, 
so far as regarded it, the apparent and actual time of sunrise 
were the same. Mr. Mill said that, on this point, the phys- 
icists were all against me. Several of them, with whom I 
have conferred, agreed with him as to the general belief. 
Some of them have argued the point, but in every case have 
finally yielded it. The problem may be thus presented : 

© 




Let O be the sun, a' the point on the earth's surface which 
has just reached the position at which the sun's light can 
reach it. It is now actual sunrise at a', and a person, on 
reaching that point, will immediately see the sun by means 
of a ray of light which left it 8' before. As there is al- 
ways a ray of light reaching from O to a' (though a flowing 
one) , it is as constant and instantaneous in its action at a' as 
if it were a rod of iron which each person came in contact 
with at that point. The sun is also seen in the direction in 
which it really is (refraction and a slight aberration exclud- 
ed). The general impression seems to be, that we see it in 
the relative position to us which it occupied 8' before. This 
would be in the direction h O. Several of those with whom 
I have mooted the point have so stated. Both these errors 
arise from considering the sun as moving around the earth, 
instead of the earth around its axis, and are the only cases 
which occur to me in which it makes any difi'erence to the 
result, whether the one or the other of these hypotheses is 



APPENDIX. 79 

adopted. These views have no bearing upon the problem 
of the aberration of light, which, so far as it arises from the 
rotary motion of the earth, is almost inappreciable. 

It seems a little remarkable that these errors, so purely 
physical, should have been brought out in discussing a ques- 
tion, so purely metaphysical, as that of our " Freedom in 
Willing ; " perhaps the very last in which people generally, 
and especially you physicists, would expect to find anything 
touching, or even approaching, daylight. 

Yours, very truly, 

R. G. HAZARD. 

To Professor Ogden N. Rood, 

Columbia College, New York. 



Columbia College, 
New York, November 23, 1867 



.} 



Mt dear Sir : After the reception of your letter con- 
cerning the erroneous idea entertained by many relative to 
the real time of sunrise and sunset, I made the experiment 
of putting the question, point blank, to a number of edu- 
cated, and even to some scientific, persons. 

At first they all, I believe, without exception, were dis- 
posed to answer that the sun's disk is perceived about 8' 
after it is really above the horizon ; and, conversely, that it 
remains visible for the same interval of time after it really 
has set. 

The instant, however, I presented the real facts of the 
case, so clearly set forth in your letter, naturally they all 
were at once convinced. 

In two or three text-books on astronomy into which I 
looked, it appeared that the point was not at all touched on. 

To your last remark, I think most physicists would reply, 



80 



APPENDIX. 



that, while they have no fear of metaphysics, as such, yet 
that individual metaphysicians are sometimes quite keen- 
sighted in discovering the unprotected joints of their " gross 
material " armor ! 



Very truly, 

OGDEN N. ROOD. 



Rowland G. Hazard, Esq., 
Peace Dale, R. I. 



LETTEB II. 

FEEEDOM OF MIND IN WILLING. 



1. After a long interruption, from causes to 
which I have occasionally alluded, I return to 
the consideration of your objections to my posi- 
tions in " Freedom of Mind in Willing," &c. 

In a former letter, as preliminary to this, I 
discussed our notions of Causation, in the diver- 
sity of which I think many of the differences in 
our views upon the Will have their root. *• 

2. In coming, now, more proximately to con- 
sider these differences, I will re-state my defini- 
tion of Freedom, to which I understand you to< 
assent, viz., " Everything in moving or in acting, 
in motion or in action, must be directed and con- 
trolled in its motion or its action by itself, or by 
something other than itself; and that of these 
two conditions of everything moving or acting, 
or in motion or action, the term freedom applies 
to the former; .... hence, self-control is but 

6 <«'^ 



82 ON CAUSATION AND 

another expression for the freedom of that which 
acts, or of the active agent * I also understand 
you to agree with me that the faculty of Will is 
simply a faculty or ability to make effort, and 
that an act of will or volition is the same as an 
•effort.f 

3. I would next notice your objections to the 
use of the term " necessity," which seems to me, 
also, to be unfortunate ; and I think the advo- 
cates of freedom have even more cause than 
their opponents to complain of its being used in 
the argument in various senses. In your chap- 
ter on the " Freedom of the Will," you say, " ne- 
cessity, ... in this application, signifies only 
iwanahility ^ but in its common employment, com- 
pulsion." 

Such common employment would seem to jus- 
tify its use as the antithesis of freedom : compul- 
sion and constraint being the terms which are 
generally used as antagonistic to that self-con- 
trol which, under my definition, and as I believe 
in the popular apprehension, constitutes freedom. 
But neither invariability nor compulsion seem to 
me to express our ultimate idea of necessity, 
which, in its relation to action and to any suc- 
cession or change, more properly indicates ihat 
wJiich must be and cannot he oilienvise. 

In the idea of necessity, as thus defined, in- 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, &c., Chap. IV. 
t Ibid., Chap. VI. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 83 

variability is not an element at all, but is only 
an inference from it, as that wMcJi must be and can- 
not he otherwise, admits of no variation. 

Neither does comjDulsion properly enter into 
this idea of necessity, but is associated with it, 
because, in some cases, and only in some, it is 
the occasion or the cause of the necessity, or that 
the event or thinoj must be and cannot be other- 
wise. We observe, then, that the idea of neces- 
sity, though distinct in itself, lies between, and 
is associated with compulsion on the one hand as 
frequently its antecedent and cause, and on the 
other with invariability as its consequent. 

A term thus situated is liable, in use, to slide 
into and partake, sometimes on the one hand 
and sometimes on the other, of the meanings of 
the terms with which it is thus associated. 

In what I have deemed its pro]3er significa- 
tion, necessity is not the antithesis of freedom. •• 
The addition of 2 to 2 will of necessity make 4, 
i. e., it must he so and cannot he othenvise ; but, as 
there is no tendency to make anything else, no 
compulsion or constraint is needed as a cause to 
insure the result, it will be without compulsion 
or constraint. It is so in its own nature, and no 
appliance of power is requisite to make it so ; 
nor could any such appliance of power make it 
otherwise. 

Again, free action is of necessity free, it must 
he so and cannot he othenvise ; and if such neces- 



84 ON CAUSATION AND 

sity is the antithesis of freedom, free action is 
not free. 

Still more obvious is it that necessity, when it 
" signifies only invariability," is not the antithe- 
sis of freedom. Free action must be invariably 
free, and if invariability is the antithesis of free- 
dom, or excludes it, then free action cannot be 
free ; and cannot be free for the reason that it 
invariably is free. 

Such propositions as the two just stated, are 
advanced only a very short step beyond the 
truism, that what is, is ; but if we enlarge the 
sphere of our examination so as to take in the 
statement, that the volition is invariaUy as the 
inclination of the willing agent, and still assume 
that invariability is the negation or disproof of 
freedom, then, the volition thus conformed to 
the inclination is not free. The fact of the in- 
variability, in itself, affords no ground for such a 
conclusion, for the question still arises. Is the 
volition thus invariably conformed to the inclina- 
tion by the agent willing, or by some agency 
without him ? 

It is obvious that there may be invariability in 
free action, and, conversely, that there may be 
variability in coerced action. To say that free 
action may be just as variable, or just as invari- 
able, as that which is coerced, is only to assert 
that what has in itself power to act may vary its 
own action or movement as readily as it can vary 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 85 

the action or movement which it causes in any- 
thing else ; and this, in view of the fact that to 
vary its effects in the anything else it must first 
vary its own action, becomes self-evident. 

Hence, invariability does not of itself indicate 
either the existence or the non-existence of free- 
dom. It is probably only by its association with 
the term necessity, and, through it, with the 
many cases in which necessity and a consequent 
invariahility are the result of compulsion, that 
invariability has come to be regarded as the an- 
tithesis of freedom. As already shown, it is only 
in cases in which compulsion is its cause that 
necessity itself can be so regarded. 

Necessity, in such cases, presupposes the action 
of some power or force capable of compelling; 
and unless the word necessity is thus used, there 
is no radical ground of dispute between some of 
us who contend for freedom, and some of the 
advocates for necessity. There can be no more 
argument between one who asserts that the 
mind in willing is free, and another who asserts 
that its action is in some respects invariable, 
than between one who says that a lemon is sour, 
and another who merely says it is yellow. In 
further illustration of the latitude with which 
the term necessity is used, it may be noticed 
that whatever exists without the exercise of any 
power or cause is said to be necessary, as space ; 
and that which exists in virtue of the exercise 



86 ON CAUSATION AND 

of a sufficient power or cause, is also said to be 
necessary. That which any specified power can- 
not prevent, is said to be necessary as to it. 
This last, as applied to volition, must mean an 
effort of my own, which by my own effort I can 
not prevent, involving two counter efforts at the 
same time. 

I may have occasion further to comment upon 
these, and some other ambiguous terms, when I 
come to their application in the argument ; and 
even if it should appear that the differences in 
the views of the contestants of this question of 
freedom in willing; are often rather in the defini- 
tions, than in the facts or inferences from them, 
still, to ascertain that this is so, and to reconcile 
such differences of nomenclature, are objects well 
worthy our attention. 

4-. But some real and important problems 
remain to be elucida,ted or settled. Prominent 
among these, are the questions. Is intelligent 
effort a beginning of the exercise of power, or 
is it a product or effect of some previously ex- 
erted power ? And closely allied to this, the 
further question. Is the being that wills an in- 
dependent power in the universe, which of itself 
performs a part in producing change, thereb}'' 
contributing to the creation of the future, and 
making it different from what, but for this inde- 
pendent exercise of its power, it would have 
been, or is its action by will — its effort — really 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 87 

only an instrumentality through which the action 
of some extrinsic power or force, existing among 
the past or present conditions, is transmitted and 
made effective in producing and determining the 
future ? My thought has led me to the affirma- 
tive of the alternatives first mentioned in each 
of these double questions ; to the conclusions 
that every being that wills can begin action, and 
by effort produce such changes, — such events as 
its finite power is adequate to, — that to such 
effort no previous exercise of power is requisite, 
and that no events or extrinsic power or force 
can produce or direct the volition or effort of 
any being, but that every being that wills is an 
independent power in the universe, in confor- 
mity to its own intelligent design or preconcep- 
tion, by its effort, freely doing its part in the 
creation of a future, which, when reached, is the 
composite result of the action of all such beings 
upon the previously existing passive conditions, 
and also upon that flow of events which other 
causes (if any such) may be producing: intelli- 
gent being, by effort, thus acting upon, and so 
changing, either the fixed things or the flowing 
events, that the future will be made different 
from what, but for its effort, it would have been. 
In other words, I hold that every intelligent 
effort (and we know of no other) is an exercise 
of originating creative power ; that even the 
oyster, if it acts by will, is a co-worker with 



88 ON CAUSATION AND 

God, and with all other intelligent agents, in 
creating the future, which is always the object of 
effort. The oyster wants to produce some change 
in the future, and directs its effort to that end, 
in some mode to it known. Its knowledge may 
be limited even to a single mode, neither requir- 
ing nor admitting of intelligent choice as to the 
mode, and this limited knowledge of the mode 
may be innate, never having required any exer- 
cise of its own intelligence to discover it, and its 
action, consequently, be purely instinctive ; but 
having in itself the power of effort, the intelli- 
gence to perceive an object, and the knowledge 
(innate or acquired) to direct its effort to that 
object, it has all that is requisite to constitute a 
self-acting and self-directing agent. 

But while, in the final effort to change the 
present, or influence the future, every conative 
being acts thus independently of control by 
others, there is an inter-dependence growing 
out of the exercise of this independent power, by 
which each one varies the conditions upon which 
others are to act, and may, so far, induce a vari- 
ation in that action ; or, to bring it under our 
general formula, each may thus, by his own 
effort, make the future action of others different 
from what it otherwise would have been; the 
power of each to vary the future thus indirectly, 
extending to the free actions of other intelligent 
beings, as well as to passive things and flowing 
events. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 89 

As every intelligent effort to change or con- 
vert the present into a future, must be made 
with reference to the conditions to be changed, 
every change in the conditions tends to vary all 
effort. In merely opening its shells, an oyster 
changes the sum of the conditions to be acted 
upon, and may thus modify the action of all 
other beings, as a pebble dropped into the ocean 
tends to move every particle of its waters. Even 
the Supreme Intelligence must be presumed to 
conform His action to the existing conditions, 
and, as the oyster in opening its bivalves, does 
thereby change the conditions, it may, in so do- 
ing, change the action even of Deity. 

We can likewise increase or vary the knowl- 
edge of others, and, to some extent, their wants 
also, and thus induce variations in their action, 
or cause it to be different from what it otherwise 
would have been. 

The power which one may thus exert to influ- 
ence the action of another, does not interfere 
with the freedom of the action of the agent thus 
influenced. If he is influenced by changing the 
conditions to be acted upon, then the action, 
upon the changed conditions, may be as free as 
it could have been upon them before they were 
thus changed; and that a being conforms its 
action to the existing conditions (or rather to its 
view of them), does not argue any want of free- 
dom, but the contrary. In a game of chess, each 



90 ON CAUSATION AND 

player influences the moves of his opponent, who 
still moves freely. The move of one changes 
the conditions upon which the other is to act; 
but, this done, the one exerts no control upon 
the volition of the other, who now wills as freely, 
in view of the changed conditions, as he could 
have done had they not been changed. One has 
merely presented different circumstances for the 
free action of the other. 

If a being should go on acting without refer- 
ence to any changes in the conditions, as a 
steam engine would go on pumping after all the 
water in the well or mine was exhausted, this 
would indicate that the intelliorence — the mind 
— of the actor did not, and that some extrinsic 
power did, control its action. The question is 
not as to how the conditions came to be as they 
are, nor whether the action would have varied 
if the conditions had been different, but, being as 
they are, does the mind act freely upon them ? 

So, too, as to any changes which one may 
make in the knowledge and wants, or any of the 
characteristics or attributes of another being ; the 
question is not how it came to be such a being 
as it is, nor whether its action would have varied 
if its characteristics had been different ; but, be- 
ing such a being as it is, does it now will freely. 

In support of these views, I urge "^ that every 
being that wills has, in itself, a faculty of effort, 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, &c. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 91 

wants which require effort for their gratification, 
and the knowledge to direct its effort with more 
.or less wisdom to this end. To beinoi-s that can- 
not create from nothing, with this faculty of 
effort, the perception of an object in the future, 
and the knowledge of a means of attaining it, 
there must be present conditions to be acted 
upon and changed, to be converted into the de- 
sired future. 

I have also endeavored to show that every being, 
having in itself these attributes of will, want, and 
knowledge, has all the attributes essential to self- 
action, and may, from its own inherent faculty, 
act upon any existing conditions, and direct its 
action by means of its own knowledge, inde- 
pendently of any extrinsic power or force, and 
hence, under my definition, in this ability to 
direct and control its own action, may act 
freely. 

The ability to act freely does not, however, of 
necessity, imply that it does in fact act freely. 
Hence, I have further attempted to show that an 
act of will or effort must be free. 

That it being impossible that anything which 
is inert, and cannot act at all, should itself act by 
will, or act upon the mind, and cause it to will, 
or that what is unintelligent should always con- 
form the volition of a being to that being's view, 
sometimes its mistaken view, of the mode of at- 
taining its object, the will of the being cannot be 



92 ON CAUSATION AND 

moved or directed by that which is inert and 
unintelligent. 

Nor is there any conceivable mode in which 
one intelligent active being can directly move or 
act the will of another ; and if any such moving 
or acting by an extrinsic being were in fact pos- 
sible, then the willing — the effort — would also, 
in fact be the effort of the extrinsic being. 

The idea, that one being may directly control 
the volition of another, involves the assumption 
that the will is a distinct entity, which may be 
appropriated by any one strong enough to seize 
and wield it for the purpose of willing, whereas 
it is only the mind's faculty of making effort or 
exerting power, and the willing is only the effort 
or immediate exercise of power — a state of 
the active being — and not a thing which has 
power, or which power can use as an implement, 
nor even a medium through which power may 
be transmitted. 

I have also, in this connection, urged that, as 
the being always conforms his action to his per- 
ception or knowledge of the means of attaining 
the object, the only indirect mode in which the 
willing of any being can be controlled is, hy so 
changing his knowledge, including his knowl- 
edge of those sensations and emotions which are 
elements of want, that, as a consequence of this 
change of knowledge, he comes to a different 
conclusion as to the object to be attained, or of 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 93 

the mode of attaining it, and wills differently, 
and that this indirect control is predicated upon 
the assumption that the being that wills controls 
its own act of will ; otherwise there is no ground 
for presuming that the action will be conformed 
to its changed knowledge, or vary with it. 
Hence, as the willing of any being cannot be 
directly controlled by the action of extrinsic power 
or force upon it, nor yet indirectly influenced ex- 
cept through its own self-control, or freedom in 
action, it follows, that if it wills at all, its action 
in willing must not only be free, but that its 
effort is an independent exercise, and beginning 
of the exercise of its power, and not an effect of 
power previously exerted upon it. 

In the common acceptation, too, of the terms, 
and the ideas they represent, compelling or con- 
straining the act of will by prior exercise of 
power or force, involves the contradiction of will- 
ing when we are unwilling or not willing. 

5. That you agree with me that mind does 
will — does by effort put forth power — produc- 
ing effect, I infer from your saying " your view 
of what the mind has power to do seems to me 
quite just." You add, "But we differ on the 
question, how the mind is determined to do it," 
and in effect argue that volition is an effect which 
is controlled and made to be as it is by previous 
conditions. 

If the volition is regarded as a distinct entity, 



94 ON CAUSATION AND 

the freedom of which is in question, then, the 
control which you assert would negative its free- 
dom, for the conditions which precede a volition 
cannot be that volition itself, and, hence, such 
control would not be by itself, but by something 
not itself, and, therefore, such volition would not 
be free, and upon this I presume we do not 
differ. 

But, if this control of its action or volition is 
by the active being itself, then, even though the 
volition be still regarded as a distinct entity, the 
control which enslaves the volition, establishes 
the freedom of the being in willing, L e., its free- 
dom in the use of this distinct entity as its in- 
strument. To meet the issue, then, it is neces- 
sary to show, not only that the volition is con- 
trolled, but that it is controlled by some power 
other than the being that wills, for if by the 
being, its action is self-controlled, and conse- 
quently free. 

In this view, your agreeing with me as to 
"what the mind has power to do," must be taken 
with some limitation. I, holding that the mind 
has of and in itself power to begin and direct its 
action in the absence of all other active power 
or force ; you, that it must be moved to act, and 
determined in its action, by some prior exercise 
of power or cause. In this relation, you some- 
times, and perhaps always, use the term influ- 
ence, upon the vagueness of which I may here- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 95 

after have something to say, and will now only 
remark, that if it does not imply the exercise of 
any power or force, then it does not imply any 
compulsion or constraint upon the being in will- 
ing, and does not interfere with its freedom in 
willing. That which acts without compulsion or 
constraint acts freely, and compulsion or con- 
straint implies the action of some power or force 
which is sufficient to compel or constrain. 

Your expression, " we differ on the question, 
how the mind is determined to do it," might be 
taken as meaning that, in your view, the mind's 
action is directly determined for it, and not by 
it, or, it may mean that while the mind does de- 
termine its immediate act, it is determined to 
determine by the operation of prior causative 
power or influence. 

I admit the position of Sir William Hamilton, 
as quoted and commended by you, that " it is of 
no consequence in the argument whether mo- 
tives be said to determine a man to act, or to 
influence (that is to determine) him to determine 
himself to act;" and I would apply the same 
remark to anything else which is said to influ- 
ence a being to act as well as to motive. I not 
only admit that it is of no consequence in the 
argument, but I am in doubt as to whether there 
is any real difference in the two positions ; and 
whether saying that a being is himself deter- 
mined to determine as to his act, is not exactly 



96 • ON CAUSATION AND 

equivalent to saying a being is himself deter- 
mined as to his act ; as to say, I know that I 
know, is no more than to say I know. 

In another aspect, there seems to be not merely 
a futility, but an incongruity in the addenda to 
the original idea. In the latter part of the ex- 
pression, Hamilton asserts that the being deter- 
mines himself to act. Hence, in that act, he is 
self-determined ; but can one whose determina- 
tion is determined by something else be self-de- 
termined ? Is there not a contradiction, or at 
least an incompatibility of ideas, involved in the 
expression, " determined to , determine himself." 
If, using other terms, it be said that the mind 
does control its own effort, but in the exercise 
of this control is itself controlled by something 
else, the same difficulty remains. It is, perhaps, 
intended to exhibit the mind as placed in a posi- 
tion analogous to that of the ivory ball between 
the one from which it receives and that to which 
it communicates the impulse. The result would 
be the same if it were wholly left out. Under 
this view, the mind has the faculty of effort, but 
can exert it only when and as it is moved to do 
so by some other power, as a steam-engine (in- 
cluding in itself the expansive steam confined in 
the boiler) has in itself the power to operate and 
to turn the millstone, which crushes the grain, 
provided some extrinsic power first changes the 
existing conditions, under which it is motionless. 



FREEDOM m WILLING. 97 

by opening a valve, and letting the steam press 
or impinge upon the piston ; and the manner or 
direction of its motion will depend upon the 
manner of the connection of the valve which is 
thus opened. The whole might be so contrived 
that the pouring of the grain into the hopper 
of the mill would, either by its motion in going 
in, or by its weight when in, move the valve, 
making an aggregate apparatus in which the 
movement to crush the grain would depend only 
upon the condition that there was grain in the 
hopper, ready to be crushed, or upon the change 
from its not being to its being thus ready. In 
this case, however, the power which moved the 
grain into the hopper is still, really, the power 
which, acting through intermediate instruments, 
moves the valve, and is a power extrinsic to 
the engine, acting independently of it. If the 
engine, in addition to power, had intelligence 
also, so that, when it perceived or knew that there 
was grain in the hopper, it could, without any 
other change of the existing conditions by other 
power or force, itself move its valves, and at its 
own pleasure produce the proper motion to 
crush the grain, the whole combined apparatus, 
with its power of self-movement and intelligent 
exercise of that power for the purpose of accom- 
plishing the end to which it was pleased to apply 
its power, would then be free in its action.. 
But at this point of intelligent action — at the 



98 ON CAUSATION AND 

very gist of the question — the analogy, like all 
possible analogies drawn from movements of un- 
intelligent matter, practically fails, and leaves the 
disputants to recur to and reason upon the actual 
facts of intelligent action to which there is no 
known similitude in the universe. 

6. The arguments which you adduce in sup- 
port of such of your positions as mine conflict 
with, I think are all embraced under the follow- 
ing heads : — 

1. The argument from cause and effect, or 
the assertion that volition is itself an event which 
is a necessary consequent of its antecedents, and, 
hence really controlled and determined by the 
past events. 

2. The influence of the present external con- 
ditions, or of things and circumstances including 
the action of one conative intelligence upon an- 
other. 

3. Influence of internal phenomena, as the 
character, knowledge, disposition, inclination, de- 
sires, wants, and habits which make up the attri- 
butes or conditions of the mind that wills. 

4. The argument from prescience, or the '^ pos- 
sibility of prediction." 

Of these, the first three are more or less 
blended in each other, all of them assuming that 
the mind's acting is always but a consequence of 
some prior action upon it ; motive being predi- 
cated of external, and also of internal conditions, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 99 

its supposed controlling power is embraced in 
both the second and third. 

The fourth is a wholly distinct and very differ- 
ent argument, for it cannot be contended that 
prescience of a volition is in itself a power which 
compels or constrains that volition to be, but 
only that the possibility of predicting a volition 
proves, or at least indicates, its connection in 
some way with something already known in 
the past, present, or future. Either will suffice 
equally well for this purpose. 

7. The argument upon these points should 
be based upon the phenomena and characteris- 
tics of voluntary action, to some of which I will 
now recur. 

The action of a being is by volition, or effort, 
which is always intended to make the future dif- 
ferent from what it otherwise would be. This is 
the object and design, without which no intelli- 
gent being would make effort. Hence, effort 
can be predicated only of an active, intelligent 
being ; of a being that can act, and that has in- 
tention or design. 

An intelligent being will not make effort to 
do when it does not want to do, and hence want, 
in such being, is also a condition necessary to its 
effort. The effort itself may sometimes be the 
thing wanted, and, in such cases, the making of 
the effort is the thing to be done, is the ultimate 
object. 



100 ON CAUSATION AND 

Any being making effort to vary the future, 
must have some knowledge, or belief, or expecta- 
tion as to what the future would be without such 
effort, and also as to what change in it will be 
wrought by his effort. For convenience, we will 
call the perception or expectation of any being 
of what the future will be, if uninfluenced by his 
action, his primary/ expectation ; and that of what 
he supposes it will be made by his action, his 
secondary expectation. 

The expectation of future effect is the founda- 
tion of our action, but whether this expectation 
is or is not realized, in no way concerns our free- 
dom in acting. That which will be in the future 
cannot change that which now is, or which has 
been. An unsuccessful effort is just as freely 
made as one that is successful. The expectation 
is merely knowledge more or less certain, posi- 
tive, or confided in, as to the states or conditions 
of things which will be in the future. 

If one knew that he were, himself, the only 
agent of change in the universe, and that every- 
thing else was passive and quiescent, he would 
know, with assured certainty, that in the absence 
of any exercise of his ow^n power, the future 
would be the same as the present ; and his effort, 
if any, must be to change the existing condi- 
tions and make them different from what they 
are. 

If he know that there are other agents at work 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 101 

changing the present into, and thus creating, the 
future, the problem becomes to him a far more 
compHcated one. To ascertain what the future 
would be, is now the most important and difficult 
process in determining as to his own effort to 
vary it. He must have some expectation of 
what the future, if produced by the composite 
action of all other powers of change, will or will 
not be, or he can have no reason for putting forth 
his own efforts to make it different. He must, 
also, have a secondary as well as a primary ex- 
pectation, or he can have no ground of choice 
between them, and, hence, no sufficient knowl- 
edge to direct his action, nor any reason to act 
at all. 

There may be cases in which one, dissatisfied 
with the present condition of things, may act at 
random, on the presumption that any change 
must be for the better j but, in such case, he ex- 
pects some change from his own effort, which he 
does not rely upon others producing. 

The conditions of the hypothesis of a sole ac- 
tive agent of change relieves him from much 
difficulty in determining his primary expecta- 
tion, but involves that of accounting for his 
changing from the passive to the active state 
when all other conditions are the same, and all 
passive. 

If universal passivity should once obtain ; 
if all material motion should cease, and all 



102 ON CAUSATION AND 

changes in thought, feelmg, and perception be 
suspended, there would be an end of all change, 
including that from rest to effort, by which intel- 
ligent beings begin to influence the course of 
events, after having refrained from doing so ; for 
intelligent beings would not make effort except 
upon a perception of some desirable and suffi- 
cient object of effort ; and, if the existing percep- 
tion had not already proved to be a sufficient 
ground for action, it could not, without some 
change, become so, and all such change is ex- 
cluded by the hypothesis. Hence, if a universal 
passivity once obtained, there would be no con- 
ceivable way out of it into activity or change 
again ; all matter would be motionless, all spirit 
inactive, and satisfied with the existing condi- 
tions of universal repose. 

This is only a phase of the general case which 
I before reached, that fixed existences, or fixed 
conditions of existence, cannot of themselves be 
cause of subsequent change. 

This difficulty in conceiving an absolute be- 
ginning of activity is analogous to, if not identi- 
cal with, that of conceiving an absolute begin- 
ning of existence. Both involve the idea of an 
absolute beginning of change, or a sudden start- 
ing of power into existence as a cause of that 
change, when there was no acting power or 
cause to produce change, nor any perceived rea- 
son for the exercise of any existing potential 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 103 

power, or for bringing power, or anything else, 
into existence* 

In the supposed ease of a universal passivity, 
there might be beings with sensations and per- 
ceptions, with feeling and knowledge ; but, if 
these involved no want, there would be no effort 
for change till there was some change in them, 
and to produce this there is no existing cause or 
power. 

It is, perhaps, conceivable that the continuous 
monotonous sensations and perceptions, known 
by the mind to be such, might create a want for 
variety. Waving this last consideration, the per- 
ception of objects of effort might arise either 
from a change in the conditions perceived, or a 
changed view of the same conditions or of their 
relations ; but, if all spirit causes were quiescent, 
such change could only be effected by material 
movement. 

Admitting that matter in motion may be 
cause,-)- we have an apparent similarity in the 
formulas which express the necessary conditions 
to the beginning of the motion of matter and 

* May not this difficulty of supposing a beginning of power be the 
foundation, or the suggestive idea of Sir William Hamilton's doctrine 
of Causation, in which every actual exercise or exhibition of power 
presumes the prefixistence of an equivalent potential power ? If so, 
his theory merely postulates the existence of power from eternity, as 
one of the alternatives in the dilemma, of which an absolute begin- 
ning of power is the other. 

t For the discussion of this point, see Freedom of Mind, &c., 
Chap. VIII. 



104 ON CAUSATION AND 

the beginning of the action of mind, viz., that if 
all matter is quiescent, the action of intelligence 
is necessary to its motion, and if all spirit is 
quiescent, the movement of matter is necessary 
to its action. But, though at this initial point 
there is this apparent similarity, there is a wide 
difference in the actual phenomena in the two 
cases. The change, by which matter, before 
quiescent, begins to move, must be a change 
by which power or force is directly applied to 
it, not only compelling movement, but the direc- 
tion of the movement. The material change 
which, in the other supposed case, is essential to 
the action of mind, does not directly make nor 
compel the effort, but only so changes the con- 
ditions that the mind perceives a reason for it- 
self making a voluntary effort, and, in this case, 
the mind must also determine what effort is 
adapted to the changed conditions, or rather to 
its changed view or knowledge of them. In 
doing this, the mind determines its action, con- 
forming it to its changed knowledge of the exists 
ing conditions and the changes it desires in 
them. There is a further difference, already 
suggested, and one which perhaps is sufficient 
to except mind from the necessity of any ex- 
ternal change to enable it to begin action. Mind 
can observe or know what is, and also remember 
w^hat was, without effort; and if an observed 
monotony is such a perception that the mind, by 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 105 

the mere lapse of time, misses the pleasurable 
excitement of variety, which it recollects to have 
experienced, and, hence, wants variety or change, 
this would be a sufficient ground for effort to an 
intelligent being which, previous to the univer- 
sal passivity, had experienced variety, and if 
such knowledge of the pleasurable excitement 
of variety, or the want of variety, is innate, then 
there is in the constitution of the being — ■ in its 
aggregate characteristics — a provision for a be- 
ginning of activity from wholly quiescent condi- 
tions, and it could begin effort to change this 
universal passivity. In like manner, if continued 
repose or quiescence leads to a want for activity, 
this would be a ground for action. In these 
cases, the mind could make effort for change, 
even though it expected in the one case only to 
gratify its want for change, without reference to 
the character of the change, as in the other to 
gratify its want for activity, without reference 
to the value of the results of its activity. 

No such constitutional element by which the 
mere fact of a continued monotony, or passivity 
of conditions, not at first sufficient to move, may 
become a ground, or occasion of movement or 
action, can be predicated of matter ; for such 
action, upon such ground, would constitute it a 
conative intelligence acting from its own percep- 
tion of a reason for acting, and not moved or 
acted by another power or force. 



106 ON CAUSATION AND 

If, further to illustrate this difference in 
the genesis of material movement and of men- 
tal action, we suppose the first change from a 
monotonous passivity to be merely the advent 
of a quiescent material formation, it must 
remain quiescent. It cannot move itself, and 
there is no other movement or activity — no 
other power or force — to move it. But, if we 
suppose the first change from the monotonous 
passivity to be the advent of a conative intel- 
ligence, also in a passive state, and any sup- 
posed cause of such advent, and all other power 
or cause to immediately cease to be, then, in 
his passive perceptions of the existing passive 
conditions, including his own feeling and desire 
or want, this conative intelligence uieiy at once 
find objects of effort, and make effort to attain 
them, and with each change he effects in the 
passive conditions, new objects of effort may 
arise. In such case, the newly created conative 
intelligence is a sole power and cause of change, 
and of course cannot be dependent upon any 
other power or cause, but, in virtue of his inhe- 
rent attributes, is, at his creation, and continues 
to be, a wholly independent power, acting in con- 
formity to his own views, and to his own designs 
to create or vary the future. 

If we now suppose this sole causal power by 
his effort to create, or bring into action, other 
causal power or force ; for instance, that he puts 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 107 

matter in motion which, in turn, produces other 
changes, this will vary the conditions upon which 
he acts, but does not interfere with his own in- 
herent power of acting, nor with his freedom in 
the genetic exercise of this power. On the con- 
trary, he may now suspend his own action, and 
resume it again whenever in the changes effect- 
ed by this other causal power or force, he per- 
ceives a reason for putting forth his own effort 
to influence the course of events. Even if he is 
unable to overcome, or in any degree to counter- 
act this extrinsic power or force, he is no less 
free to make effort, and to begin to make it for 
this object than he was to try to change the pas- 
sive conditions which he found existing at his 
own creation. Nor can it make any difference 
whether this extrinsic power or force, which is 
thus varying the conditions upon which he acts, 
is intelligent or unintelligent, nor whether it was 
brought into existence by his own efforts or 
otherwise ; nor whether it has always existed, or 
has had a beginning. He is as free to act upon 
his knowledge of the actual conditions, including 
his immediate sensations or observation of what 
other powers or forces have effected, and the 
pre-conceptions of their future effects, which he 
passively perceives, or by effort deduces from 
these present sensations, as he was when no 
other power or force existed, and he was acting 
only upon existing passive conditions. In both. 



108 ON CAUSATION AND 

and in all cases, he is free to act and to begin to 
act, whenever, either in fixed or flowing condi- 
tions, he perceives a reason for acting. 

He always acts to make the future different 
from what it otherwise would be, and directs his 
action by his knowledge of means to the result, 
which, on comparing his primary with his secon- 
dary expectations, he chooses and desires. When 
he ceases to be a sole cause, he is more liable to 
be mistaken in his pre-conceptions of what the 
future will be, and to misapply his effort, and fail 
of effecting his objects ; but he is equally free to 
make the effort — equally free to try to do, and 
to conform his effort to do, to his own notions, 
whether they be true or false, wise or foolish. 
There may be cases in which, even in regard to 
extrinsic matters, we act as a sole cause. There 
may be passive conditions around us, among 
which we perceive that by effort we can effect 
desirable change; but, even in such cases, we 
count upon the continuance of natural laws, or 
the uniformity of cause and effect, which, in my 
view, are only expressions for the uniform action 
of some other intelligent power or cause. This 
reliance upon the action of other causes to aid us 
in our efforts is not the same as a prior action of 
power causing us to make effort, or controlling 
the direction of the effort, but is only one of the 
elements of our secondary expectations, and does 
not prevent our acting as an independent cause, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 109 

nor even, in relation to the particular effect we 
seek to produce, as a sole cause. 

If all within the sphere of one's action were qui- 
escent, he could still act, and the future effects, in- 
cluding the action of other causes and their influ- 
ence upon these effects, would all primarily be the 
effects of his action. Even in these cases, then, in 
the preliminary examination to determine our own 
action, we look to the action of others as an impor- 
tant element. It, however, offcener happens that 
we do not thus take the initiative, and make oc- 
casion for the action of other causes, but by our 
efforts seek to modify the effects of other causes, 
already active, rather than wholly to create the 
future. 

The hypothesis of a universal passivity is 
wholly foreign to our experience, and does not 
come into the practical question of our freedom 
of action in the actual conditions of our exist- 
ence, in which we find that, even when one is 
wholly inert himself, changes are continually 
taking place around and about him, which vary 
the sensations and perceptions of which he is 
only a passive recipient, bringing to his notice 
objects of effort; that either by the constitu- 
tional continuous movements in his own being, 
or by the action of some other extrinsic cause, 
hunger comes from abstinence, that even what 
in itself is agreeable becomes a wearying monot- 
ony, inducing a desire for variety, and that the 



110 ON CAUSATION AND 

wants of repose and of activity reciprocally follow 
each other. These last two I have suggested 
may, perhaps, spring directly from the attributes 
of intelligent being without its own effort, and 
without the action of any extrinsic power. 

Assuming, now, that to each individual there 
is without him, a certain flow or current of 
events, produced by other causes than himself 
(material or spiritual, or both), we come to the 
question, has he an independent power or faculty 
of effort by which he can of himself begin action, 
and thereby so influence this current of events 
as to make the future different from what, but 
for his efforts, it would be ? If he has such power, 
and in the exercise of it is free from external com- 
pulsion and control — if this current of events 
does not determine, but he himself determines his 
effort, by conforming it to his own view of what, 
under the existing conditions, suits him best — 
then, under my definition of Freedom, he is a free 
agent, in his finite sphere, and to the extent of 
his finite power as freely doing his part in creat- 
ing a future, as God, in His sphere, and in the 
exercise of His power, is in doing His part of 
the same work of creating that future, the crea- 
tion of which is the composite result of the efforts 
of every being that wills. 

This question of freedom in willing, however, 
does not involve that of our actual power to do, 
for we may be free to make effort, i. e., to try 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. Ill 

to do what, from deficient ability, we may not 
succeed in doing. This freedom in making the 
effort, or in trying to do, is the question at issue, 
and is wholly distinct from that of our power to 
do what we attempt. 

8. The speculations in which I have indulged 
upon the hypotheses of a sole cause, and a uni- 
versal passivity, however foreign to our own 
actual experience, I trust, have thrown some 
light upon the more practical question of the 
ability of each individual to begin action when, 
though himself quiescent, he is the percipient of 
changes effected by other causes. 

The question as to the mind's ability to begin 
action covers the same ground as the first of the 
four arguments, or categories on page 98, in- 
volving the asserted influence of the past and its 
causal influences, which again involve that of the 
uniformity of cause and effect. 

The necessitarian argument, on this ground, 
assumes that the mind must be acted upon by 
something before it can itself act, and then finds 
this something in a causative agency of the past, 
which it generally designates as a motive. 

This argument, in various forms, is applied to 
all of the four categories, and the different phases 
in which it appears will be most conveniently 
treated as they arise in the discussion of each of 
them. 

We may, however, observe, generally, that 



112 ON CAUSATION AND 

the past is always that which has already been 
changed into the present, and having now no 
actual existence, cannot, of itself, be a cause of 
anything in the present. We remember it as 
that which has been, but it no more exists in the 
present than does the future, of which we have a 
prophetic conception. That our knowledge of 
the one is more certain, more reliable, or more 
perfect than of the other, does not give it intrinsic 
causative power. Knowledge, however perfect^ 
is not itself knowing or active, nor does it confer 
the power of activity upon that which is known. 
It may be said that the past is not necessarily 
changed in the present, but may flow into its 
future without any change. In this case, the 
past has not produced the only effect of its 
causative power which can possibly be attributed 
to it, that of changing itself into its future, for 
the only effect of the action of any cause is to 
make the future different from what it would 
have been, and the moment it flowed into its 
future, without change, it would become a fixed 
existence, which, as before shown, would then 
of itself have no power to produce subsequent 
change, and, of course, could not change any- 
thing or any being from a passive to an active 
condition; could not impart motion to matter, 
or volition to intelligence. It would only be a 
subject to be acted upon, and not a thing that 
could act. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 113 

It may be said that though no effect was pro- 
duced by these causative powers of the past, they 
did exist, but that they exactly neutrahzed each 
other, and hence no change was effected by 
them. Still this no-effect must continue, unless 
some new power is added — some agency — 
which, like that of intelligence, having a want 
for variety, can, on perceiving this universal pas- 
sivity, put forth power, and begin change, with- 
out being first acted upon by any other activity 
or power. By the hypothesis there is no such 
other activity, and if there is nothing to which 
passive conditions, as want and knowledge, fur- 
nish a ground for action, no action can ever be. 
If the past has already applied its causative power 
to change itself in passing to its future, and failed, 
then, the conditions being all the same, it can 
never succeed in doing this, but must forever re- 
main in this condition of unsuccessful appliance 
without any effect or change. There are only 
two conceivable modes in which the effects of 
the exercise of any causative powers in the past 
can be extended to the present. One of these 
is by putting matter in motion by which those 
past causes may have developed a self-continu- 
ing power, which will extend the effects of their 
own action in time.* The other is through the 
action of some intelligent being, which has either 

* On the question of the possibility of such causes, see- I'reed()mi 
of Mind in Willing, Book I. Chap. VIII. 
8 



114 ON CAUSATION AND 

the ability to continue its own action from the 
past to the present, or to begin new action in 
view of the fixed results of past causative agen- 
cies, and to adapt its action to these results, which 
now constitute the conditions to be acted upon ; 
but it is obvious that no motion could be imparted 
to matter from a past, in which everything had, 
even for an, instant, become quiescent, and if, at 
the moment of such quiescence taking place, the 
existing conditions did not present a reason for 
effort, they could not, while continuing the same, 
present any such reason to any intelligent being 
in which also no change had taken place. 

Of these modes of continuing the influence of 
causative power, it may be remarked, on the first 
of them, that any effect in the present is the re- 
sult of the present action or impact of the mov- 
ing body, and not of its pad motion ; and of the 
second, that it is not the past existence of the in- 
telligent being with his attributes, but his present 
effort that produces the effect. As heretofore 
shown, the effect must result from causes in ac- 
tion at the time it occurs, and not from prior 
action.* There are also two conceivable modes 
in which the causative agencies of the past may 
affect the present action of the powers of the 
past thus continued into the present. The one 
by the state to which the past has brought the 
conditions to be acted upon, and the other by 

* Letter on Causation, page 33. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 115 

the characteristics it may have imparted to the 
powers which are to act upon these conditions ; 
for instance, the direction which it may have 
given to any matter in motion, and the changes 
it may have made, or left unmade, in the charac- 
ter of any intelligent being. 

The action of these powers or forces, intelli- 
gent and unintelligent, must be affected by their 
relations to the conditions which the past has en- 
tailed on the present. Though the past agency, 
which put a body in motion, may have no pres- 
ent control of its movement and effect, still the 
effect of that movement may depend upon cer- 
tain material being in the line of its movement, 
so that it will come in collision with it, and the 
position of such material, or that it is in the line 
of the body's movement, may have been deter- 
mined in the past. 

But the consideration of the influence of all 
the extrinsic conditions upon the mind's freedom 
in willing belongs under our second, and that of 
any changes in the intrinsic conditions of the be- 
ing by the past, under our third category or head, 
and this last especially so, as we are only thus in- 
fluenced by the past through our memory, which is 
a form of our knowledge. That habit forms no ex- 
ception to this, I think, is shown by my analysis of 
it in Freedom of Mind, &c.. Book I. Chap. XI. 

In the first categorj^, the controlling influence 
of the past is put forth in the argument from 



116 ON CAUSATION AND 

cause and effect, or that for every event or thing 
which begins to be, there must be a prior cause 
for such beginning, upon which it is dependent 
for its beginning to be and for being as it is, and 
not otherwise, and, hence, vohtion, being an event 
or thing which begins to be, is dependent upon 
a prior cause, which, under the admission that 
the same causes must produce the same effects, 
of necessity causes it to be and to be as it is, and 
not otherwise. 

In regard to the dictum, " The same causes 
of necessity produce the same effects," I have al- 
ready stated my views pretty fully,* and have 
also remarked that the very object of volition is 
always to interfere with and change the uniform 
result which would otherwise recur ; and will now 
add that the determination of a volition, by any 
causative power in the past, is no less an inter- 
ference with our freedom if its action be variable 
than if it be uniform. It is not, then, the uni- 
formity of the effects of the action of past causes 
which interferes, or indicates any such interfer- 
ence, with our freedom. Such uniformity, by 
association, induces the idea of necessity, though, 
as already intimated, by enabling us to antici- 
pate, it, in fact, aids our own efforts to thwart or 
vary the results of causation in the past. 

As already suggested, if this argument from 
the necessary uniformity of cause and effect is 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book II. Chap. XI. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 117 

applied to volition as a distinct impassive entity 
which begins to be, it proves that such entity is 
not free ; but, if it is applied to a mere state or 
condition of mind, it does not prove that the 
mind in such state is not free, or that mind, as 
itself a cause may not change itself from the pas- 
sive to the active state without any extrinsic ap- 
pliance of power or cause to it. To avail any- 
thing, then, this argument from cause and effect 
must assume, not that effort itself, but that mind 
in its effort is controlled by the antecedents, and 
cannot itself begin action or inaugurate change. 
It is common to illustrate and enforce this argu- 
ment for necessity by reference to the phenom- 
ena of matter in motion. Little aid should be 
expected from the comparison of phenomena so 
essentially different as material movement and 
intelligent effort, and there is much danger in 
transferring the observations and deductions 
which we may make in one of these fields of 
inquiry to the other. The difficulty of explain- 
ing the phenomena of mind in effort, by refer- 
ence to the facts observed of matter in motion, 
is really not less than that of explaining the 
motion of matter by reference to the phenomena 
of the mind's effort. Indeed, as motion is one of 
the direct results of effort, while effort can never 
be produced by motion, we might more logically 
refer the material phenomena to the mental than 
the converse. Still, as a means of illustration. 



118 ON CAUSATION AND 

the phenomena of motion cannot well be dis- 
pensed with. Matter in motion may at least be 
conceived to be, and to most persons does in fact 
appear to be, a cause of change. In this one 
respect it resembles effort, to which there is no 
other known thing in the universe that has any 
similitude whatever. If, then, we would illus- 
trate effort by analogy at all, we must admit the 
phenomena of motion as a means of doing it, 
and do the best we can to avoid sliding into the 
errors to which, in following such analogies, we 
are exposed. This resemblance, seeming or real, 
lies not at all in the things themselves, nor in 
their modes or actings, but only in the one cir- 
cumstance that both do produce effects. Still, 
from the close association, in the popular mind, 
of material causation by motion with intelligent 
causation by effort, the ambiguities and the con- 
fusions arising from the vague expressions com- 
mon to such subjects, have been much increased 
by an indiscriminate application of the same 
terms to both of these forms of causation. The 
phrase, " that which moves," has two very dis- 
tinct meanings, sometimes indicating that which 
causes the motion, and sometimes that in which 
motion is caused, or that which is actually mov- 
ing, without any reference to the cause of its 
moving. The horse is that which moves the car- 
riage ; the carriage also is that ivhich moves. In 
like manner, the phrase " that which acts," is 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 119 

applied to intelligent beings in the state of will- 
ing, and to matter in the state of motion, and 
through this last application readily partakes of 
the ambiguity which attaches to the phrase " that 
which moves." We speak of the action of the 
mind in willing, and of the action of the mus- 
cles, meaning, primarily, that the mind is itself 
active, and that the muscles are acted or moved 
by it. 

The phrase, "that which acts," as compared 
with the phrase, " that which moves," is an ap- 
proach to the idea of a self-active power, exclud- 
ing to some extent the idea of that in which 
action or motion is only caused. We may prop- 
erly say that A moves a piece of lead, or a piece 
of lead is being moved by A, but not that A acts 
a piece of lead, or that a piece of lead is being 
acted by A. That which moves may mean either 
the power which produces the motion or the pas- 
sive thing which that power moves, but that 
which acts is always the active agent or the actor. 
That which moves [i e., the entity moving or in mo- 
tion) may be wholly passive in moving; that which 
acts (^. e,, the entity acting) cannot be said to be 
passive. But action and motion are liable to be 
confounded. By using the word efori to indicate 
the mind's exercise of power, we avoid much of 
the confusion to which the word action, with its 
analogies and associations exposes us ; for though 
we sometimes use the phrases, " motion of mat- 



120 ON CAUSATION AND 

ter," and " action of matter," as convertible, as 
also the phrases, " mind's action," and " mind's 
effort," thus applying the term action both to 
mental effort and material motion, we never (in 
this sense of the word) think or speak of the 
effort of matter. All effort is of the mind, which 
has no other mode of exerting its power. But, 
in the exercise of this power, it has two very dis- 
tinct objects ; the one to produce change in the 
external world, the other to extend its own 
knowledge beyond the mere passive perceptions 
of phenomena. By effort, we draw inferences 
from present facts, anticipate the future, repro- 
duce the past, or so arrange our ideas that new 
relations and new truths become apparent. To 
produce external change, we always begin with 
an effort to move the appropriate muscles of our 
own bodies ; this is the case even when we would 
change the knowledge, thought, or action, of our 
fellow-beings, for there is no known mode of 
communicating our own thoughts to them, ex- 
cept through material changes, which we cause 
for that purpose. The case would be different 
if we sought to produce change in beings that 
could directly perceive our thoughts without the 
aid of such external manifestations. Prayer re- 
quires no material medium, but as God is every- 
where, is within as well as without us, this hardly 
makes an exception, and any intelligence, which 
is not so far within us as to have an immedi- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 121 

ate cognition of our thoughts, must learn our 
thoughts through external changes. We m.ay 
then say that, in all our efforts to change the 
external world, including the actual experiments 
by which we add to our knowledge of it, and 
the modes by which we impart our knowledge 
to others, we begin with an effort to move our 
muscles, while in attempting directly to increase 
our own knowledge, including that of the modes 
or means of producing changes, we often begin 
and end with an exercise of the mind's intrinsic 
power, without resorting to experiments in mat- 
ter, and, hence, we use the phrases " muscular 
effort" and "mental effort," not to indicate efforts 
made by the muscles, and efforts made by the 
mind, but to generically distinguish the objects of 
the mind's effort in each particular case. We can- 
not distinguish these two classes of actions from 
each other by reference to the actor, for the actor 
is the same in both ; but we name them from 
the subjects of the action, muscular efforts always 
meaning efforts of the mind to change what is 
extrinsic to it, and mental efforts meaning efforts 
of the mind to change itself, i. e., to increase its 
own knowledge, there being no other mode in 
which it can effect change in itself Still, this 
use of the phrase "muscular effort" leads some per- 
sons to attribute original intrinsic power by effort 
to the muscles, laying a foundation for a belief 
in material causation, and increasing the confu- 



122 ON CAUSATION AND 

sion in regard to power in matter which the use 
of the word action has occasioned. 

I trust that these remarks upon the use of the 
terms motion, action, and effort, may, at least to 
some extent, prepare the way for the proper use 
of the phenomenon of matter in motion as an 
illustration of that of mind in action, and aid to 
make both the agreements and disagreements in 
them available for that purpose. I have already 
stated some of these, and noted that the analogy 
wholly fails at the very point which concerns 
the question of the mind's freedom in effort ; but, 
as such analogies may still be useful, and are, in 
fact, very generally used in the discussion, it may 
be well still further to trace them out, and note 
their bearing upon it. 

Spirit is the only thing which can make effort, 
or exert intrinsic power. Matter is the only 
thing that can be directly changed by power 
extrinsic to itself 

Power to effect change by effort is a part of 
the constitution of intelligent, active beings ; the 
susceptibility to be changed by power, is a part 
of the nature of things. The phenomena of 
spirit, as knowledge, perception, sensation, emo- 
tion, are only indirectly affected by extrinsic 
power, and cannot be directly acted upon by it. 

Matter, in being moved by a force extrinsic to 
it, is wholly passive in its movement ; my hand, 
in being moved by a mental effort, is, in itself, as 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 123 

passive as when at rest. So, too, if my mind, in 
acting, were acted by something extrinsic to it, 
it would be as passive in acting as when not 
acting. If the effort is produced or caused by 
power extrinsic to the agent, then the agent is 
passive, and does not act or make effort. Any 
expression of the idea that the effort is produced 
or caused by a power extrinsic to the being 
making it, involves the contradiction that the 
actor is not active, or that he is both active and 
passive at the same time. The idea not only 
necessitates this solecism in expression, but is 
contradictory in itself 

That which produces motion in matter is the 
cause of the motion, and if matter moves itself, 
or produces motion in itself, it is self-moving. 
So, too, that which produces action is the cause 
of the action, and if a being acts itself, or produces 
action in itself, it is self-active. 

The action of mind is wholly in the mind's 
effort, and not in the antecedents or the conse- 
quents of its effort ; and, hence, a being with a 
faculty of effort is self-active, needing only an 
occasion for action. 

So long as a substance is caused to move by 
some extrinsic power or force, it is but the passive 
subject of the action of that power or force, or a 
passive instrument, or a medium through which 
that power or force is transmitted and made effec- 
tive in something else. It is not till the moving 



124 ON CAUSATION AND 

power or force ceases to control the movement of 
such substance, that it can itself become cause. If, 
after such power or force has ceased to produce, or 
to control the movement, this substance continues 
to move by some inherent quality or property 
in itself, then, in virtue of this inherent attribute, 
it has power, and may be, in itself, a cause. In 
such case, the prior extrinsic exercise of power 
by which it was put in motion, has, from what 
was before inert and powerless, created or devel- 
oped a moving power capable of acting indepen- 
dently of, and either in concurrence with, or in 
opposition to, the power which has thus produced 
it. So, too, the creation of a being with a faculty 
of effort, wants to be gratified by effort, and the 
intelligence to put forth and direct its effort to 
their gratification, is the creation of a power or 
cause, which, in virtue of its own inherent attri- 
butes, is self-active, and can go on to produce 
effects wholly independent of the power which 
created it, or of any other power. The matter, 
though fully developed in existence, if at rest, 
requires extrinsic force to put it in motion ; but 
mind can itself begin action, and change the di- 
rection or intent of its action whenever it per- 
ceives a reason for so doing. 

9. All the arguments against the freedom of 
the mind in willing, which are embraced under 
the first three heads, assert, or assume, that the 
mind must be acted upon before it can itself 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 125 

begin to act ; and this, to avail, must assert that 
it is acted upon by some extrinsic power, which 
is sufficient to produce the effect and cause the 
mind to act, and to act in the manner in which 
it does act ; for, if acted upon by some power 
which produced no such effect, its freedom could 
not thereby be interfered with, and for stronger 
reason, if it were conceivable that it could be 
acted upon by that which has no power at all, 
such action could in no way interfere with its 
freedom. I can see no reason for asserting that 
a volition is not free merely because it has had 
antecedents, uniform or otherwise, i. e., because 
somethinoj has been before it. 

In each of the three positions named, then, 
and especially in the first, which relates to the 
influence of the past, and the application of the 
law of cause and effect, it is virtually asserted 
that the mind, in its act of willing, is caused to 
act, and to act in a particular manner, by the 
prior action of some casual power or force. 

Having noted what, in this connection, seem 
to me the more important of the resemblances 
and discrepancies between the phenomena of 
matter in motion and of mind in action, I will 
proceed to consider this question of the mind's 
being caused to act, and controlled in its action, 
as an effect of a prior exercise of power or force. 
And, on it, I would first remark, that we not only 
have no experience of any direct application of 



126 ON CAUSATION AND 

such power or force to the mind's act of will or 
effort, but that we cannot even conceive of any 
mode or manner in which such power or force 
could be applied to it ; but, on the contrary, our 
experience is, that from a state of inaction, we 
can of ourselves begin action without any such 
power or force first acting upon us, and with no 
other essential antecedent than our perceptions 
of the present and expectations as to the future, 
both of which, being forms of knowledge, are 
passive in their nature.* If these have been 
attained by prior effort, that effort has been ex- 
hausted in the effect, leaving the mind, so far as 
such effort is concerned, in a passive state with 
its increased knowledge of the present and future, 
which is all that it requires, and all that it uses, to 
itself determine as to its exercise of its own pow- 
er of acting, and the manner of such exercise. 

I have already remarked that the ability of 
the mind to start from a fixed condition of uni- 
versal passivity into action, is, at least, doubtful, 
and that such condition being wholly foreign to 
our experience, the problem is not practically 
important. 

10. The more practical question is, can the 
individual, himself passive in the midst of chang- 
ing conditions, of himself put forth effort, and 
thus begin action. Upon the general question 

* Knowledge and our perceptions are always passive. See Free- 
dom of Mind in Willing, Book I., chap. iii. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 127 

of one's power to begin action, it does not make 
any difference whether the conditions, which by 
effort he seeks to change, are fixed or are in pro- 
cess of change by the action of some other causal 
power (provided that in case all other conditions 
are fixed he has not passed into the fixed state 
himself). In either case, he acts upon his expec- 
tation of the effect of his effort upon the future, 
and any change in his expectation by the action 
of other causes is, of course, a change in his 
knowledge, which will be considered under its 
proper head. Assuming, then, that in actual life, 
other causes are continually producing changes 
around us, our experience is that we may be 
passive observers of the course of events — mere 
recipients of the changing sensations and emo- 
tions they produce — till we perceive * that they 
are tending to some undesirable result, or that 
by our own effort a more desirable result may 
be obtained, and then put forth our power 
by effort to prevent or to modify the result 
to which the action of extrinsic causes is tend- 
ing- 

This change from a passive to an active state 
is as much a matter of observation and experi- 
ence as the changes in our sensations and emo- 
tions are, and the change from a state of non- 
effort to one of effort is as well attested, in both 
these modes, as the change from a state of not 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book I. Chap. III. 



128 ON CAUSATION AND 

seeing to that of seeing, or from that of not feel- 
ing to that of feeling, and the heginning of an 
eifort is as marked as the beginning of a sensa- 
tion. The necessitarian argument from cause 
and effect itself asserts, as one of its essential 
links, that volitions do hegin to be, but, as this may 
only mean that different volitions constantly suc- 
ceed one another, it does not necessarily assert 
that we are ever in that state of non-effort which 
is a prerequisite to a new heginning of effort, though 
not to the heginning of a new effort, and, admitting 
that every volition has -a beginning, the necessi- 
tarian might still argue that each one in succes- 
sion is a consequence of that which preceded it, 
the whole being an uninterrupted series, depen- 
dent upon the first term, or upon it and such ex- 
trinsic forces as might combine with it to vary 
the subsequent volition ; or, admitting the total 
suspension of action in the individual, assert that 
his resumption or beginning anew was the result 
of some causative power in the past ; in either 
case making the whole destiny of the being de- 
pend upon the time, or, as it is asserted that the 
causative powers of the past are divided in space, 
upon the time and place at which it was dropped 
into the current of events. 

Any reasoning upon these questions must ulti- 
mately rest upon consciousness. There is no 
bringing the argument, either for the mind's 
freedom or for its necessity in effort, home to 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 129 

one who has no consciousness of effort. If he 
has not this direct intrinsic cognition of it, he 
cannot know it at all, for, as there is nothing 
with which it has in itself any similitude, there 
is no extrinsic mode of imparting even a con- 
ception of it to him. Such a being, however, 
though he might have knowledge and feeling, 
and might be the passive subject of action, could 
not himself act, — could not make effort, — for an 
unconscious effort is in thought as absurd as an 
unfelt feeling. But, while the fact of effort in- 
volves the consciousness of it as a necessary con- 
comitant, it is not so certain that the conscious- 
ness of effort is conclusive as to the fact of effort. 
A feeling, either in the form of a sensation or an 
emotion, cannot be merely representative. That 
I feel, is itself the ultimate fact in the case for 
which no other can be substituted, and which no 
other can account for on the ground of mistake 
or otherwise. But, it seems conceivable that our 
conception of an effort may so represent effort in 
us as to be mistaken for it ; in other words, that 
we may have the feeling of effort without actual 
effort, the feeling being conclusive only of its 
own existence, and not of the effort to which the 
feeling is attributed, as the sensation of material 
resistance is proof only of the existence of the 
sensation, and not of the existence of the matter 
to which we refer it as its cause, or even of any 
actual resistance whatever. One's consciousness 
9 



130 ON CAUSATION AND 

or internal perceptions are the best possible, if 
not the only, ground of belief to himself, but not 
to others. One cannot be mistaken as to his 
own actual consciousness, or his actual sensa- 
tions, but he may draw erroneous inferences 
from either. 

In this view, I could not, as against any one 
denying the fact, insist that our consciousness of 
effort is conclusive proof even that we make 
effort, much less, the fact of effort being admit- 
ted, urge any dicta of consciousness as proof that 
such effort is either free or not free. Hence, too, 
I deem your objection to Sir William Hamilton's 
position, that freedom is directly proved by our 
consciousness, well founded; but it seems to me 
that your objection, if not actually too broadly 
stated, is liable to be so construed. You say, 
" consciousness tells me what I do or feel. But 
what I am able to do is not a subject of conscious- 
ness. Consciousness is not prophetic. We are 
conscious of what is, not of what will be. We 
never know that we are able to do a thing except 
from having done it, or something equal and 
similar to it." 

In regard to that for which effort is made, it 
may be true that we can only know or judge of 
the probability of our actually doing it by our 
experience in similar cases. But, if the effort 
itself is the thing to be done, I contend that we 
must be conscious of our ability to do it, and 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 131 

must have an expectation, a " prophetic " antici- 
pation, that we can or may accomphsh that 
which is the object of the effort, otherwise the 
effort would not be put forth, and for our first 
actions we must have these prerequisites prior 
to experience. I have before given ray reasons 
more fully for the position that the knowledge 
of a mode of effort, and also that by effort we 
can move our muscles, must be innate, preceding 
all experience.* If, in this, I am right, the pres- 
ent existence of the knowledge of this ability is a 
matter of consciousness. It is still, however, only 
a perception or feeling of our being able to move 
our muscles, and we might yet be mistaken in 
inferring an actual ability from this perception 
or feeling of it. Our knowledge of this ability, 
however, whether it conform to the fact or not, 
is still innate, and a direct revelation of con- 
sciousness. 

We agree that the mind does make effort, 
and in discussing those questions of its freedom 
in which we differ, I shall endeavor to postulate 
nothing from consciousness which you will not 
admit. 

11. You have adopted a position which seems 
to be a common one on both sides of the contro- 
versy J viz., that freedom in any act of will re- 
quires that we should, at the time of willing, 
be able to will the contrary. This raises the 

* Causation, 6. 



132 ON CAUSATION AND 

question, are we thus able ? And as both parties 
agree in bringing this to the test of conscious- 
ness, I will consider it here, deferring for the mo- 
ment the question of our ability to begin action, 
to which I was about to apply the foregoing 
views. 

As against Sir William Hamilton's inferring 
freedom directly from consciousness, you say, 
" To be conscious of free will, must mean to be 
conscious before I have decided that I am able 
to decide either way." I would say that, to be 
conscious of free will must mean to be conscious, 
before I have decided that it is I that am to de- 
cide; that I am to determine my own act of 
will at my own pleasure, or as on examination I 
shall find will suit me best. The case you state, 
whether one will prefer to murder or not to 
murder, does not raise the question of freedom 
in willing, but only of preferring or choosing, 
which, though heretofore held to be the same 
as willing, you agree with me is something en- 
tirely different. The willing to murder is just as 
free as the willing not to murder, and the only 
question touching the freedom of the willing is 
the same in either case ; viz.. Does the being as 
he is, good or bad, himself determine to make 
the effort to murder, or not to make it ? Whether 
he determine to make, or not to make, may indi- 
cate what his character is, but has no bearing 
upon the question of his freedom. As the rela- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 133 

tions of character to freedom will hereafter be 
considered I will not here comment upon them. 

Your analysis of the phenomena of conscious- 
ness, and of the manner in which, through it, the 
belief in an ability " to do or abstain," or to do 
" the other way," as you state it, but which is 
often stated as an ability to " do the contrary," 
is induced, does not conflict with my positions, 
but are in accord with them. 

That this ability to " do the contrary " is essen- 
tial to freedom, seems also to have been reached 
through a logical error in this wise. Freedom 
and Necessity being assumed to be directly op- 
posed, the one of necessity excluding the other, 
it follows that the freedom of an act requires 
that it should not be of necessity; and then, as 
necessity implies that which must be and cannot 
be otherwise, it becomes essential to the freedom 
of an act of will that it could be otherwise, which, 
as between it and not acting, or between it and 
any other contemplated act, is to say it could be 
the contrary. It is hardly necessary to urge 
that the conclusion is vitiated by using the term 
necessity in two different senses. So far is it 
from being true, that to be free in willing one 
must be able to will the contrary, that if it could 
be proved that an effort could be otherwise than 
in conformity to the intent, design, and object of 
the actor, it would tend to prove him not free in 
his effort. Our freedom in willing is evinced by 



134 ON CAUSATION AND 

our willing to do what we want to do, and it 
cannot be necessary to this freedom that we 
should be able even to try to do what we do not 
want to try to do. 

The expression " ability to do the contrary," so 
often used, has a vagueness which is not wholly re- 
moved by a change to ability to imll the contrary. 
The question, what is the " contrary " ? still arises. 
If the question is only between doing and ab- 
staining, willing or not willing, there is no doubt 
as to which is " the other," or what is the " con- 
trary." But, as between positive acts, the " con- 
trary " is not always so clear. Going down stairs 
is the contrary to going up stairs. If I am al- 
ready at the foot I cannot go down, but I may 
go up. But this inability to go up is not a defi- 
ciency in the freedom of willing, but of the 
knowledge of a mode of willing. The inability 
attaches as much to unfree as to free will. If 
the willing is free, i. e., if I control and direct my 
own act of will to the doing of anything, I must 
know some possible mode of doing it; I must 
have a plan of action by which to direct my 
effort to the doing ; and if, on the other hand, my 
act of will is not free, i. e., if it is controlled and 
directed by some extrinsic intelligent agent, that 
agent must direct it in conformity to some plan 
known to it, and in either case the want of the 
knowledge of a plan renders the act of will im- 
possible. If it be said that this reasoning does 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 135 

not apply to control by unintelligent power, it 
may be replied that such power, even when ex- 
erted without intelligent design, must still con- 
form the willing; of the controlled beins: to some 
plan of doing the thing, and there being no pos- 
sible plan of going down stairs from the bottom, 
such conforming is impossible. It is not a ques- 
tion of power, for infinite power could not over- 
come the difficulty. 

Reducing the case to its lowest terms, if the 
actual willing is a free willing, then the freedom 
to will the contrary would be a freedom to will 
unfreely ; and to assert that the mind is not free 
because it has not the liberty to be unfree, or 
because it cannot be otherwise than free, is the 
sophism to which I have heretofore reduced 
some of the necessitarian arguments, and upon 
which I need not now comment. Under my 
definition, the freedom to will the contrary of 
an actual free act would be freedom to will 
counter to one's own control or direction, which, 
again, would be a freedom to be unfree ; and the 
position is here again reducible to the same 
sophism and absurdity as the more radical case 
of it just stated. 

12. Returning, now, to the question of our 
ability to begin action, I think it will be admit- 
ted that we are at times unconscious of effort; 
and if, as I have endeavored to show, the existr 
ence of an effort involves the consciousness of it, 



136 ON CAUSATION AND 

it follows that at such times we really are inert, 
— that, in fact, we sometimes are in a passive 
condition. And, in reference to the mind's abil- 
ity to put forth its power, and begin effort in the 
absence of all other causative power or force, 
and of course when no other such power or force 
is acting upon it, I suggest this case : Suppose 
one, while in an unconscious, and consequently 
passive state, to be taken by a tornado into an 
unknown forest where everything was wholly 
passive, and that the last effect of the tornado, 
or the effect of its ceasing to exist, was to 
awaken him from the unconscious to a con- 
scious state, in which he felt hungry or lonely, 
can it be doubted that he could immediately 
make effort to pluck any fruit in sight, or to get 
out of the uninhabited district ? It will be borne 
in mind that his perception of the conditions is 
passive, and that in the premises there is no 
power to act upon him prior to his own acting, 
and hence, unless he can thus begin action, 
everything must there remain passive until the 
ingress of some other power. 

Strictly speaking, there is perhaps no difficulty 
in conceiving an absolute beginning of action, 
the real difficulty lying in conceiving of the cre- 
ation, or even the existence of anything to act, 
before there has been any action to produce it. 
However this may be, there is no difficulty in 
conceiving the beginning of action by each indi- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 137 

vidual intelligence after it comes to exist, nor of 
the beginning of each particular action of such 
individual. We cannot conceive an absolute be- 
ginning of time, but have no difficulty in con- 
ceiving of a beginning of any designated portion 
of it 

In our notions touching the beginning of effort, 
we are misled by the analogies of material phe- 
nomena. When matter is quiescent, it requires 
the direct application of force to put it in motion. 
When mind is quiescent, it requires a change in 
its knowledge — in its perceptions. As a pre- 
requisite of action it must obtain the perception 
of a sufficient reason for acting ; but this, as be- 
fore stated, it may passively obtain. A conative 
intelligent being, in virtue of its intelligent per- 
ceptions, can design a future effect, and at pleas- 
ure apply the power, which, in virtue of its in- 
herent faculty of effort, it possesses in itself, 
to produce the effect. Having, in itself, all the 
requisite attributes, it can, of itself, begin action, 
and stop or change its action to conform to its 
changing perceptions of future effects, and to 
any change in its design; while unintelligent 
matter must be moved by something not itself, 
and then cannot stop its motion, or change its 
direction ; but for these also requires to be acted 
upon by something not itself A combustible 
material does not stop or change its course to 
avoid a consuming fire. An intelligent being 



138 ON CAUSATION AND 

will, of itself, stop or change its action to avoid 
painful consequences. 

13. To the action of a being with a faculty 
of effort, wants demanding effort, and knowledge 
to apply its effort to the desired ends, no extrin- 
sic or prior application of power or force is re- 
quisite, for all that is necessary is, that it should 
perceive that there is an occasion — a reason — 
for putting forth its own inherent power. This 
reason is always the present perception of some 
desirable result in the future. It is thus isolated 
from the forces of the past. The past may have 
made the being what it is, with its knowledge and 
its wants ; but how or when it came to be such 
a being as it is, has now nothing to do with its 
power to begin action, or with its freedom in 
acting. The question is not, how it came to be 
such a being as it is, but whether, being as it is, 
it now wills freely, or is capable of self-activity, 
and of beginning action. Such a being, if created 
and thrown among the existing conditions at this 
instant, could immediately begin action — could 
make effort to change the present, and conform 
the future to its wants, whether (in the absence 
of its own effort) it expected that future to be 
the same as the present, or to be varied by the 
action of other causative power ; in short, could 
act upon and vary the fixed conditions, or flow- 
ing events, to make the future different from 
what, but for its action, it would be. As to the 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 139 

fixed conditions he could do this if there were no 
other power in the universe, and, as to the chan- 
ging or flowing conditions, he could do it, though 
all the other powers in the universe were wholly 
absorbed in changing the conditions, leaving no 
extrinsic power to act upon himself, and of 
course, in either case, there is no power to con- 
trol, or even to act upon the being thus making 
the effort, and he must, therefore, act of himself, 
and so acting, without being in any wise acted 
upon, acts freely. 

Nor could it make any difference when the ex- 
istence of the conditions commenced, or whether 
they ever had any commencement ; whether they 
have existed in their present or in some other 
form from all eternity, or are the immediate cre- 
ation of the instant, constituting, with the like 
instantaneous creation of the conative intelli- 
gence, an absolute commencement of creation, 
having no past. The question as to action is 
still the same. What, under these conditions, as 
they now actually are, is the active being, with 
its existing knowledge and want, to do or at- 
tempt to do ? In either case, the power of such 
being to change, or, to attempt to change, the 
existing conditions, is the same. 

It may be objected, that we have no experi- 
ence in regard to action in the supposed cases 
of the creation at the instant of action, either of 
the active agent, or of the conditions to be acted 



140 ON CAUSATION AND 

upon, or of both ; but even if this is true, such 
hypothesis would still be allowable to eliminate 
the accidental phenomena and associations from 
the essential elements of volition, as in demon- 
strating a property common to all triangles we 
eliminate, in our reasoning, all the conditions ex- 
cept those which belong to all figures with three 
sides, and reason exclusively from these. But, 
as before shown, on every occasion for action 
there is some change, either in the knowledge 
or wants of the active agent, or in the conditions 
to be acted upon, and with every change, whether 
effected by the past, by the power and forces of 
the past, or by any other cause whatever, or by 
no cause, the aggregate existence regarded as 
an entirety, is, at the instant of change, a new 
and immediate creation, in which the intelligent 
being finds himself suddenly placed, and often 
under circumstances wholly unexpected, but still 
is ever ready to put forth his inherent power of 
effort, if in the conditions of this new creation he 
perceives a reason for so doing. Every intelli- 
gent being has, in fact, continually to adapt its 
efforts to the various circumstances of the new 
creation of each instant, and in so doing meets 
with no compulsion or constraint. He may al- 
ways freely try to do, though he may not always 
have power to do. Though at each instant there 
cannot be an absolute commencement of creation, 
there is in each a commencement of a new crea- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 141 

ation, and if, at any one instant, all the causative 
powers and forces, which brought about the then 
existing conditions, should cease to be, having 
just introduced, as their last effect, one single 
conative being, this one could still put forth 
effort to change the quiescent conditions, and 
conform them to his want. The effort, in such 
case, is a heginning of the exercise of power. In 
the quiescent phenomena, and in the mind's per- 
ceptions of them and of the requisite changes in 
them, there is no power, but only subjects upon 
which to exert it, and passive perception of de- 
sirable objects to be obtained by its being exerted. 
For these the mind puts forth its effort, and do- 
ing this in the absence of any power to act upon 
it, manifests its own power of self-action — of 
acting as an originating first cause. 

If, instead of all the other causative powers 
ceasing to be, we suppose them to continue ac- 
tive, but in such manner as not to affect the 
action of the particular conative being, the result 
is the same. He must then act of himself upon 
his own perceptions of a reason for acting, and 
without being first acted upon by any extrinsic 
power. 

It cannot be said by the advocates of the con- 
trolling power of the past, that this hypothesis 
of the non-influence of existing causes is either 
inconceivable or inadmissible ; for, if they con- 
tend that the volition of the being is at any and 



142 ON CAUSATION AND 

every instant the effect of the whole past, then, as 
the whole past is the same to all, the volition of 
every being would be the same at the same in- 
stant ; * and if to avoid this consequence of their 
assertions of a causative power in the past, and 
of the necessary uniformity of causation, they 
say that the whole past does not act upon each 
individual, then they admit that portions of the 
past may not affect the volition of this individual 
being; and if portions may be dispensed with, it 
is conceivable that any and every portion may 
be so eliminated ; and, further, that nothing of 
the past of necessity affects the volition of any 
particular being, and hence, such being may act 
uninfluenced by these past conditions. Upon the 
efforts of the being to make his way out of the 
forest, into which he had been hurled by a tor- 
nado, the changes originating in the past, such as 
the present growing of the trees, or the motion 
of the foliage, may have no influence, and all 
such changing elements being eliminated, he, as 
he now exists, with his knowledge and his wants, 
acts as a sole agent of change upon his own per- 
ceptions of the passive conditions of the present, 
and without the appliance of any extrinsic power 
of the past or present. 

Having in himself a faculty of effort, and the 
knowledge of a mode of directing his effort to a 

* For a more general statement of this position, see " Causation," 
page 56. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. . 143 

desirable result, he himself puts forth and directs 
his effort, and it is of no consequence how or 
when he acquired this faculty and this knowl- 
edge, or whether to them there has been any 
past. It is sufficient that he now has them. 

14-. In the cases of instinctive action, the be- 
in sc is created with the knowledo-e of the mode 
of action, and has not acquired it by any experi- 
ence in the past. It need not know, and probably 
does not know, that the conditions upon which 
it first acts had any existence prior to its own, 
and so far as its action is concerned, there is no 
necessity that they should have had any prior 
existence whatever. Their present existence is 
all that is essential to their being acted upon ; 
as the present existence of the being with its 
faculty of effort, its want of change, and the 
knowledge of a mode of directing its effort to 
produce the change, are all that is essential to 
his acting upon them. The same is evidently 
true in all other cases of action. Whether the 
faculty of effort, the knowledge by which it is 
directed, and the want, are any or all of them 
innate or acquired ; or whether they existed in 
the past, or not till the instant of the effort, can 
make no difference to the freedom of the being 
in the effort. 

It is not, then, necessary to a volition that the 
active being, or the conditions acted upon, should 
have had a prior existence, or that so far as the 



144 . ON CAUSATION AND 

being and the existing conditions are concerned, 
there should have been any past — their imme- 
diate creation at the instant, serving equally 
well for all the purposes of voluntary action. 

Nor does it matter by what power or cause 
the present existing conditions have been, or are 
brought about, whether by the effort of the actor 
or other intelligent power, by matter in motion, 
by some mysterious power of " the past," or as 
the last result of a continuous series of antece- 
dents and consequents in a chain of causes and 
effects. The prior cause of the existence of the 
present conditions does not, in any respect, vary 
their power, or give them any power to produce 
or hinder a volition. The intelligent being acts 
neither more or less freely upon the existing 
conditions as they are, under any one of these 
hypotheses, than under any other of them, and? 
in fact, really acts upon them without any refer- 
ence whatever to their causes, and just as freely 
as if there never had been any prior cause of 
their existence ; but they had either existed from 
all eternity, without any beginning or any com- 
ing into existence, or had, at this instant, begun 
to be without any cause. He has no occasion, 
whatever, in deciding his action, to take into ac- 
count what has been in the past, but only what, 
in view of the iweseiii, will be in the future, or 
what may be expected. He acts entirely upon 
his present expectations, and looks to the past, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 145 

or rather to his present memory of the past, only 
to increase his knowledge, and form more ac- 
curate expectations. It may be said that the 
knowledge of the past causes of the present con- 
ditions, enters into, and becomes the possession 
or attribute of the being that is to act upon 
them, and that his action is influenced by this 
knowledge. The consideration of any such in- 
fluence belongs to our third category. The fact, 
however, is, that even the most intelligent finite 
being generally knows very little of the causes 
in the past which have produced the present, 
and for the purpose of determining his own ac- 
tions, seeks to divine them only to increase his 
knowledge, and enable him more certainly to 
foresee the future, and to avoid mistakes in his 
action. But were these causes ever so well 
known, that fact has no bearing upon the ques- 
tion of the ability of the being to begin action ; 
for, as before suggested, he might have this same 
knowledge at the instant of his creation without 
there having been any past, and his action would 
be just the same as if it had been acquired by 
past experience. It is his present knowledge of the 
relation of his action to the future effort, and 
not the knowledge of past relations that he acts 
upon. Though, in the past, he may have ac- 
quired the knowledge which enables him more 
correctly to judge as to what the future will be,, 
he is, in the present act of will, with this acquired 
10 



146 ON CAUSATION AND 

power of divining the future, entirely isolated 
from that past. So far as his present action is 
concerned, the whole past has culminated, and 
been concentrated in the knowledge (including 
that of the existing conditions) which has now 
become, the possession or attribute of the know- 
ing being, and not the possession or attribute of 
the past. Neither the past nor the things or 
events of the past can know, or could, in the 
present, use knowledge to direct a volition, as to 
the future, in itself, or in anything else. 

It appears, then, that, to each individual, it 
makes no difference whether the course of 
events, or the future conditions which would 
obtain in the absence of his own action, will be 
produced by intelligent or material causes, or by 
the absence of all causes of change. He is only 
interested in knowing what they would be, and 
by what means he can, by his own action, make 
such differences in the future events and con- 
ditions as he deems desirable. With this knowl- 
edge, and an inherent faculty of activity, he can 
act independently of any other power or force, 
and resist or cooperate with any others, and if 
he, with such knowledge and faculty of action, 
and also the conditions to be acted upon, were 
the immediate creation of the instant, and had 
no past, he could still immediately begin action, 
and put forth effort to change the conditions. 
If there were no other power in existence, he 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 147 

could make effort to change the existing passive 
conditions, and, if there were other powers, he 
could himself conform his own action to the 
expected results of these co-existing causes of 
change without being first acted upon by them, 
and even though all other past causation had 
been wholly exhausted in producing the extrin- 
sic conditions, and without any action upon 
himself, except such indirect change in his 
knowledo;e as would result from the chano;ed 
conditions. 

This power to begin action is the peculiar 
attribute of an intelligent being, with a faculty 
of effort, and with wants demanding effort. It 
is an immediate consequence of the fact that a 
being, having such faculty of effort, intelligence 
to perceive an object of effort, and to direct its 
effort to that object, or rather, with a view to 
that object (for the degree of sagacity with 
which it does it, has no bearing upon the ques- 
tion of its ability to make, or of its freedom in 
making the effort), has in itself all that is essen- 
tial to action, and let it have come into existence 
when and how it may, can now of itself act upon 
any existing conditions, wholly independently of 
any powers which brought it into existence, or 
of any other power past or present; and the 
past, as such, has no necessary relation to its 
present abiHty to make and direct its own effort. 
By means of its intelligence — its perceptions at 



148 ON CAUSATION AND 

the moment — it uses and directs its inherent 
power by effort to produce such future change, 
as in its view of the existing conditions it deems 
desirable. All experience attests that the mo- 
ment we perceive a mode of effecting change, 
combined with a sufficient reason for adopting 
it, we are ready to make effort, requiring no 
prior action of power or force upon us to change 
us from the passive to the active state ; but only 
that in the present conditions we shall perceive 
a sufficient reason, now existing, for putting forth 
our power to affect the future. 

It is in view of this power to begin acting, and 
not as a first actor, that I regard every being that 
wills as a " creative first cause," and hold that 
the future is always the composite effect — the 
joint creation — of all these first causes, acting 
upon such fixed material as there may be to act 
upon, and modifying any necessary results of 
matter in motion.* 

15. It may, perhaps, be said that even admit- 
ting that a conative intelligent being is thus in- 

* It is from not recognizing this power of mind to begin action, 
that Sir William Hamilton gets into all his difficulties, in regard to 
the alternative of " an absolute commencement," on the one hand, 
and " an infinite regress ; a chain of causation going back to all eter- 
nity," on the other. The argument from this assumed necessity 
of an infinite regress, or an absolute commencement, is used by 
Edwards as especially applied to volition, and also generally as in- 
volved in the law of cause and effect, or the necessity of a causal 
antecedent to every event. I have endeavored to point out the fal- 
lacies involved in his application of it in both these modes. See 
Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book II. 



FREEDOM m WILLING. 149 

dependent of any exercise of power in the past, 
— can thus begin action, — still, that it does so is 
now the very thing to be accounted for — that 
the exercise of its inherent power is an event 
which now begins to be, for the existence and 
manner of existence of which there must be some 
cause. That though the volition or causative ac- 
tion may account for the existence of other phe- 
nomena, and for their being as they are, and not 
otherwise, its existence does not account for it- 
self, nor for its being as it is, and not otherwise. 
To account for anything is to ascertain the cause 
of its being, and for its being as it is. It is un- 
fortunate that in this connection the word cause 
is used to designate both the action of a power 
which makes or compels the existence of the 
event or thing, and also the perception of bene- 
ficial result, which is not itself power, but merely 
the reason why an intelligent being puts forth 
or exerts its power to bring an event or thing 
into existence. The facts and their relations, 
which are perceived, have in themselves no 
power. They might have existed unperceived 
for any length of time, and in connection with 
all other contemporary circumstances, without 
producing, or having any tendency to produce, 
any effect or change, and certainly could pro- 
duce no. volition in a being which did not recog- 
nize them. This added circumstance of recogni- 
tion, this perception of the existing facts and their 



150 ON CAUSATION AND 

relations, has not, in itself, nor when combined 
with the other circumstances, any actual substan- 
tive power. This inheres in, and is put forth or 
exerted, not by the circumstances, nor by the 
perception of them, nor by the reason perceived, 
nor by any combination of these elements, but by 
the perceiving being, which, as a self-active poiver, 
does not require the previous exercise of power 
upon it, but only that it shall perceive that the 
present or expected conditions admit of desirable 
changes, which, in its view, are a sufficient rea- 
son, or offer a sufficient inducement, to put forth 
its power by effort to effect these changes. 

Matter in motion being the only known means 
by which the effects of causative power are ex- 
tended, either in time or space, it is through such 
motion that we seek to connect any motion or 
change in that which cannot move itself with a 
self-active or originating cause ; and, as intelligent 
being, with a faculty of effort, is the only self- 
active or originating power known to us, we seek 
to trace back any such motion or change to the 
exercise of this power, and having done this, 
there is no further inquiry as to what power pro- 
duced the phenomenon. A volition or effort dif- 
fers from the phenomena, which we thus trace 
back to their primary cause, in being itself the 
exercise of the power, or its immediate manifes- 
tation in action. It is that particular state of 
the existence of the being in which it acts as 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 151 

power, and is embraced in that existence with- 
out any connecting link ; and hence no tracing 
through such hnk in the case of vohtion is pos- 
sible. We have accounted for the motion or 
change by tracing it to the exercise of a self- 
active, self-directing, originating, or first cause ; 
and no longer look for its antecedent power, or 
for the power of this power, though we may still 
seek a solution of the very different questions as 
to how this power came to exist, or under what 
conditions it exists, or is productive of effects. 

To the first of these, how intelligence, as mani- 
fested in a conative being, or otherwise came to 
exist, no intelligible answer has yet been given. 
The conditions of its existence are knowledge 
and feeling combined with a faculty of effort, all 
these being essential to the exercise of its power 
by effort. When we seek to account for the 
action of such being, we do not look for any ex- 
trinsic power that makes the effort, or compels 
and gives direction to it, but we seek the reason 
which the being itself passively perceived for 
putting forth its own power, and this perception 
of a sufficient reason, which is the. only prere- 
quisite of its effort, is as distinct from power or 
effort, as the sensation of vision is from its ob- 
ject. When we find that the being had a want, 
and perceived that by effort he could gratify- 
that want, we have found the elements of this 
sufficient reason. There was no power in these 



152 ON CAUSATION AND 

elements, singly or combined, and power here 
commences — begins to be — without previous 
power to cause it to begin to be. With want 
and knowledge, both in themselves passive and 
incapable of effort, or of manifesting power in 
any way, the intrinsic potentiality is developed, 
genetic power is evolved, and action begins 
to be. 

We trace back a river towards its source, and 
find each portion of it preceded by what is also 
a portion of a river, and which, in its flow, makes 
the succeeding portion, but at length come to 
where the supply of water is no longer from a 
section of the river ; and continuino; the reo-res- 
sive examination, we find that the action of 
heat, a thing entirely different from a river, is 
among the essential antecedents of its existence. 
So, too, tracing back any change in matter, we 
may find that each successive phenomenon has, 
for many steps, been caused by antecedent mo- 
tion of matter ; but at length we come to where 
the antecedent is not a movement of matter, but 
a volition or effort, and continuing this regressive 
examination, find that knowledge and want, or 
rather the perception of reasons founded upon 
them, are among the prerequisites of the volition 
or effort, and all these prerequisites being wholly 
passive, with no element of action, are as differ- 
ent from volition as the heat of the sun is from 
the water of the river; but by this combination 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 153 

of intelligence with a faculty of effort, activity 
is generated directly from passivity, without the 
necessity of any prior action of power upon the 
combined elements which characterize the con- 
ative being. 

The views now presented, I trust, are sufficient 
to establish the ability of the mind of itself to 
begin action without the application to it of any 
prior power or force constraining or compelling 
it to act ; but, be this as it may, I presume it 
will, at least, be admitted that neither the Past, 
nor any causative Powers or Forces in the past, 
directly act upon the mind in the present, causing 
or compelling it to act, and to act in a particular 
manner ; but that the Past and its causative 
agencies only indirectly affect the mind's action, 
by having already changed either the mind it- 
self, or the conditions upon which it is to act ; 
thus changing the elements in the relations of 
which the mind perceives the reasons and in- 
ducement for effort, and for the particular effort 
which it puts forth, 

16. It is in these external and internal con- 
ditions, and the inducements which grow out of 
their relations, that, admitting that the mind does 
determine its own action, you find a power or 
influence which determines it to determine. This 
word influence, perhaps, occasions as much con- 
fusion, and underlies as much fallacy, as any one 
used in this discussion, cause and choice excepted. 



154 ON CAUSATION AND 

Like cause, it is applied to power itself, and also 
to the perception by a sentient being of a reason 
for exerting its power; neither the perception 
.nor the reason perceived being in themselves 
power. As distinguished from the actual appli- 
ance of , power, influence always implies the 
mind's perception of a reason. It is admitted 
that any changes made in the conditions in the 
past may vary the mind's perception, but such 
perception or reason being but a form of knowl- 
edge, the consideration of its effect on the free- 
dom of the mind's effort will properly come 
under our third category, and leave us, in the 
second, only to consider the potver of external 
conditions to produce, control, or determine the 
mind's effort ; or to control or determine it in its 
own act of determining ; or in any wise to inter- 
fere with its freedom in acting;;. 

17. If the external conditions have such con- 
trolling power, then, it must be admitted that the 
mind, in its action, is controlled by something 
which is not itself, and is, therefore, not self-con- 
trolled, and not free in its action. This is the 
question involved in our second category. 

The first difficulty in arguing this point, is 
that of fixing upon any conceivable mode in 
which these external conditions (the influence 
which belongs to the mind's perception or knowl- 
edge of them, and not to the conditions them- 
selves being excluded) can act the will itself, or 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 155 

SO act upon the mind that wills as to control its 
action, or in any way interfere with its freedom 
in effort. 

Some conception or idea of what is asserted is 
essential either to sustaining or refuting it. 

It cannot be intended to assert that some ])ar- 
ticular kind of extrinsic conditions prevent free 
action, while others do not, for this would, in 
some cases, admit the freedom which is wholly 
denied as impossible. The assertion, then, must 
be, that the mere existence of conditions of any 
kind excludes freedom. The position seems to 
be, that as the mind must conform its efforts for 
change to the conditions to be changed, those 
conditions do control and determine its efforts; 
and, conditions to be changed being always pre- 
requisites of the mind's effort, it is always thus 
controlled and determined by them, and the 
mind being so controlled in its effort by some- 
thing extrinsic to itself, is not free in its effort. 
The argument assumes that the action is invari- 
ably conformed to the existing conditions, and 
that the conditions or subjects to be acted upon, 
control and determine the action of the agent 
that acts upon them. 

If only unintelligent external conditions and 
the intellio;ent active ag:ent are taken into con- 
sideration, and the control of the volition must be 
attributed to the one or the other of these two, 
it would be more rational to attribute it to that 



156 ON CAUSATION AND 

which wants change, or which can perceive the 
relation of its effort to the expected effect, and 
of that effect to its want, than to the conditions 
which resist the change for which the effort is put 
forth, and which cannot know the want nor the 
changes required for its gratification, nor the 
effort fitted to produce them ; in short, to attrib- 
ute the effort for change to that which desires 
change, and knows how to effect it, rather than 
to that which resists change, and does not know. 
The external conditions are related to the mind's 
effort only as objects to be acted upon, and 
altered by the effort. To say that they cause 
the volition, is to say that what resists, and is to 
be overcome, causes the effort which overcomes 
it ; and the word cause is thus applied, not to that 
which has potver to change, but to that which is to 
he changed. The power to act is attributed to the 
passivity to be acted upon, and the passive sub- 
ject of the action is deemed the active cause. 

It is essential to the gratification of the want 
of the actor that certain changes should be 
effected in these conditions; but this does not 
imply any power in the conditions to act upon, 
and produce, control, or direct the effort of the 
actor, any more than it does to directly act upon 
and change themselves without any such inter- 
mediate effort. We can, at least, as well conceive 
of their acting directly upon themselves as upon 
anything which is extrinsic to them. The per- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 157 

ception by the active being that the change is 
essential to his gratification, is to him a reason 
for acting ; and from the vague manner in which 
reason and cause are used as interchangeable 
terms, and the further confounding of the con- 
ditions with the mind's perceptions regarding 
them, the conditions are loosely and improperly 
said to be the causes instead of the objects of 
the effort, to which they have no other relation 
than that which arises from their being the 
things to be acted on and changed. In these 
changes, but more especially in the efforts for 
these changes, the conditions are the passive 
subjects, not the active agents. In the phenom- 
ena of effort it is necessary that conditions to be 
acted upon and changed should exist, but not 
that these conditions should act, or have any 
power or force. Effort is itself the exercise of 
power, and is in no sense the effect or conse- 
quence of power exerted. Whatever makes the 
effort exerts or puts forth the power, and this 
exercise of power cannot be by one being or 
thing and the effort by another, for this exercise 
of power and the effort are one and the same 
thing. 

The conditions external to the mind do not 
act its will, do not make effort, nor do they act 
the mind to act the will, nor directly move the 
mind to will. The direct action of the material 
external conditions can only be by means of 



158 ON CAUSATION AND 

impinging bodies in motion, and neither the 
mind nor its effort can be the immediate sub- 
jects of such action. The mind's effort may be 
conformed to these external conditions ; but such 
a conforming can only imply that the effort will 
be such as is required, by the existing conditions, 
to produce the desired result in the future ; and 
what this result is, the conditions, being unintel- 
ligent, cannot know, nor, if knowing, could they 
devise a mode of action by which to reach it. 

Even if there are among the external condi- 
tions intelligfent ag:ents knowing; all the condi- 
tions and the result desired by the active being, 
and also the effort required to produce that re- 
sult, there is still no known means by which 
such agent could directly act upon the will of 
another, or move or act the mind of another to 
move or act. All such direct action upon the 
Will, by any agency whatever, implies that it is 
a distinct entity to be acted upon, and not the 
mere state of something acting ; and if an effort 
could be produced in this way, it would be the 
effort of the agency producing it. If the effort 
in my mind is by myself, it is my effort; if it 
were by some other intelligent agent, it would 
be his effort, and if by some material thing, it 
would be its effort. The latter hypothesis needs 
no comment. 

18. If the effort in my mind is produced by 
another mind, it must be by the action, i e., by 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 159 

the effort of this other mind, and the hypothesis 
involves all the difficulties of self-originating 
effort (with the alternative of an infinite series 
of extrinsic efforts) ; and in addition thereto, the 
further difficulty of conceiving of some mode in 
which the effort of one mind can directly pro- 
duce effort in another, of which mode we have 
no experience or knowledge, nor do we ever 
make effort to make the effort of others, or to 
directly vary the efforts which others will make ; 
but we always do this indirectly, by changing 
the knowledge of those whose efforts we would 
influence, and this again we always do by some 
change in the material conditions of which both 
parties have a common cognition. This use of 
material phenomena to change the knowledge 
upon which the action depends, may be one 
reason why the action is so generally supposed 
to be controlled by these phenomena. But, 
though our knowledge is so dependent upon the 
extrinsic conditions that change is produced in 
the former by changing the latter, still, the 
actual conditions, be they mere change of sensa- 
tions or otherwise, and the mind's perception of 
them, are two entirely distinct and different 
things, and the influence of this perception or 
knowledge upon the mind's freedom we are to 
consider hereafter. 

It may be said that the present conditions 
were made as they are by causative powers of 



160 ON CAUSATION AND 

change in the past, and action in conformity to 
the particular conditions thus created, must also 
be determined with the conditions. This as- 
sumes either that the mere fact of change in 
the conditions, or the changed conditions them- 
selves, are incompatible with freedom. The 
former, I presume, will not be asserted, and, in 
regard to the latter, the argument on this point 
for necessity generally, as drawn from the influ- 
ence of conditions, has already assumed that the 
influence attaches alike to all conditions. The 
nature of these conditions can make no differ- 
ence to the freedom of the intelligent agent act- 
ing upon them, for it is obvious that the mind 
can act as freely in regard to any one set of 
them as to any other, or rather in regard to that 
expectation of the future, which it infers from 
one set of conditions as from that inferred from 
any other set ; and, hence the power in the past 
or present to change the conditions to be acted 
upon, does not imply any power to interfere with 
the freedom of the actor. 

It is of no consequence whether the conditions 
to be acted upon — things or events — are the 
creation of the instant, or are in any sense the 
product of the past. The expectation in regard 
to the future, which arises from the presoit ex- 
isting conditions, is all that concerns the being 
in its efforts in relation to them. The events or 
changes produced by physical agencies (if any 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. IGl 

such) are of necessity, and must be, if not inter- 
fered with, in a certain fixed order of succession, 
and this order may be regarded as a portion of 
the external conditions to be acted upon, and 
changed by intelligent causes which alone have 
power to interfere with and change it. 

In reference to action, however, such events 
and changes differ from those produced by intel- 
ligence only in the degree of certainty with 
which we can anticipate them, and this same 
difference obtains between the actions of an in- 
telligent being whose character or habit inspires 
us with confidence as to his action, and one 
either unknown, or known to be erratic. In this 
respect it, then, makes no difference whether the 
uniformity of nature arises from the necessitated 
action of blind forces which cannot change, or 
from the free action of a supremely wise and 
powerful intelligence which does not vary its 
design, nor fail to effect what it designs. 

If all the existing conditions external to a con- 
ative intelligence are inert and powerless, then 
there is a positive expectation that the immedi- 
ate future conditions will be the same as the 
present, with only such changes as this conative 
intelligence may itself produce ; and, in this case 
there is no extrinsic power to control or direct 
its effort, which must therefore be self-controlled, 
self-directed, and free. 

If there are other existing powers of change,. 
11 



162 ON CAUSATION AND 

the conative being still acts upon its perceptions 
or expectations of what, with this added element, 
the future, without, and with his own effort, would 
become, and in doing this as freely directs his 
action to produce the result he desires, as when 
acting upon the more certain expectation which 
he had when he was himself the only power of 
change. He acts as freely, though not, perhaps, 
as confidently, in the one case as in the other. 

The whole argument for the controlling power 
of the conditions is founded upon the assumption 
that the volition must var}^ with, and conform to, 
any changes in them. 

That the mind's action, under one set of con- 
ditions, is different from what it would be under 
another set, or that it conforms its action to 
them, cannot argue any want of self-control or 
of freedom, for this adaptation of its action to the 
conditions, is just what would be expected of a 
self-controlled, intelligent being knowing the con- 
ditions ; and, on the other hand, action without 
reference to the existing conditions, would indi- 
cate a necessitated, blind, or unintelligent move- 
ment. 

The very thing supposed to be freely done, is 
that the mind determines, in view of the circum- 
stances, of which it is cognizant, and not that it 
determines in view of any other, or without ref- 
erence to any circumstances whatever. The ob- 
ject of the conative intelligence being to effect a 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 163 

certain change in the future, the change it wants, 
and the means of effecting it, will both depend 
upon what the conditions now are, and hence its 
efforts, if free, will vary with these conditions, 
and acting with this reference and consequent 
conformity to them, would not indicate any want 
of freedom in the actor. If, then, it were true 
that the effort is always conformed to the ex- 
ternal conditions, it would not prove that the 
conditions control the effort, but rather that the 
intelligent being controls and conforms its effort 
to the conditions. 

But the assumption of this conformity, from 
which the controlling power of the conditions is 
inferred, is not warranted by the facts. 

What is meant by the volition or internal 
effort being thus conformed to the external con- 
ditions ? There are no particular internal efforts 
w^hich can be said to fit certain external condi- 
tions. We cannot say that the effort to move 
the hand up or down, or horizontally, or any 
other particular effort, especially fits or is adapt- 
ed to a bonfire, or any other specific external 
condition, or even to any combination of such 
conditions. There is no such conformity in fact. 
The apparent conformity arises from the uni- 
formity of like effort to like conditions. 

It would be more nearly true to say that the 
effort is conformed, not to the conditions, but to 
the mind's perception or view of them. When 



164 ON CAUSATION AND 

the view varies from the actual conditions, the 
effort is always conformed to the view, and not to 
the conditions. We know this not only by our 
own experience, but by the narrated experience 
of others. People often account for their mis- 
takes in action, by saying that their view or 
knowledge of the conditions was erroneous or 
deficient, — did not conform to the actual con- 
ditions. Strictly speaking, however, the conform- 
ity is not to the actual conditions, nor to the 
mind's view of them, but to the mind's percep- 
tion of the mode of acting upon the existing 
conditions so as to produce the future effect 
which it desires. This is the only conformity or 
fitness in the case; and this, with the same ex- 
trinsic conditions, may vary with each individual, 
and with the same individual at different times. 
If, then, in the supposed conformity of the effort 
to the conditions there was any reason for infer- 
ring a control of the effort by the conditions, then, 
upon this altered statement of the facts, this con- 
trol should now be transferred to the mind's per- 
ception or knowledge of a mode of attaining its 
objects; and this again carries the case to our 
third category, which we will now examine. 

19. It is urged by the advocates of necessity 
that the volitions are, and must be, in accordance 
with the disposition, inclination, desires, and hab- 
its, and, being thus necessitated, are not, and can- 
not be, free. This is substantially your position. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 165 

except that you disclaim the knowledge of " any 
must in the case, any necessity other than the 
unconditional universality of the fact." You say 
the necessitarians " affirm, as a truth of experi- 
ence, that volitions do, in point of fact, follow 
determinate moral antecedents with the same 
uniformity and (when we have sufficient knowl- 
edge of the circumstances) with the same cer- 
tainty as physical effects follow their physical 
causes. These moral antecedents are desires, 
aversions, habits, and dispositions combined with 
outward circumstances suited to call these in- 
ternal incentives into action. All these again 
are the effect of causes, those of them which are 
mental being consequences of education, and 
other moral and physical influences. This is 
what necessitarians affirm." 

Upon your statement, that "volitions follow 
determinate moral antecedents with the same 
uniformity and . . . with the same certainty as 
physical effects follow their physical causes," I 
would remark, in passing, that I have already 
raised the question as to the existence of any 
physical causes, and that upon my view the com- 
parison you have here instituted is merely that 
of the uniformity of the action of the Supreme 
Intelligence as compared with our own. I have 
also essayed a demonstration, that the outward 
circumstances cannot, of themselves, exert any 
power to control the will ; and the same reasoning 



166 ON CAUSATION AND 

will serve to show that they acquire no such 
power by combination with desires, dispositions, 
or anything else ; that it is not in any case the 
outward circumstances, but the mind's own view 
of them (its knowledge) which alone has place in 
the perceptions by which its action is determined. 
The expression, " moral antecedents combined 
with outward circumstances," is then equivalent 
to moral antecedents combined with knowledge. 
This, I trust, will become obvious as I proceed, 
as also that the "moral antecedents" you allude 
to are all either modes of want or of knowledge, 
reducing all the influence which you attribute to 
the combination of "moral antecedents" with 
"outward circumstances," to that of want and 
knowledge. 

These outward circumstances may vary the 
effeet of volition, but, of themselves, have no bear- 
ing whatever upon what the volition will be, the 
mind's knowledge of them, which has such bearing, 
being something entirely different and distinct 
from the outward circumstances. That in the 
way in which I would walk there is an impassa- 
ble barrier that I know not of, has no influence 
upon my willing to walk that way, though it 
may prevent my walking as I w^illed. That I 
know there is an impassable barrier may prevent 
my willing to walk that way, even though there 
is in fact no such barrier. It is the hiotuledge, not 
the outward circumstances, which influences the 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 167 

mind in its willing. The moral antecedents men- 
tioned are merely characteristics of intelligent 
beings, varying more or less in different individ- 
uals, but in each making up its character. The 
character of a being is simply that which consti- 
tutes it what it is, and distinguishes it from what 
it is not. A being or thing with no properties, 
no character, would be no particular being or 
thing ; matter, with no extension, would be no 
matter • and being, with no attributes, would be 
no being ; intelligent being, with no knowledge, 
would not be intelligent being ; conative being, 
without a faculty of effort, would not be conative 
being ; no conception of such existences is possi- 
ble, and any expression, definition, or description 
of them must be absurd and contradictory. 

The character is thus practically inseparable 
from the being as it is ; and any hypothetical sep- 
aration of its characteristics, if total, involves the 
annihilation of the distinctive being, merging its 
substratum (if any) in the generic existence from 
which its peculiar characteristics had individuated 
it, and if partial, its conversion into a different be- 
ing, with some of the same elements in it. But, 
in the question of effort, we have to do with the 
being as he is at the time of the effort ; and his 
character constituting him what he is, any influ- 
ence of the character is in fact the influence of 
the being, thus constituted and thus distinguished, 
from all other existence. 



168 ON CAUSATION AND 

It may be urged that this character of the 
being, to which his actions correspond, has been 
made by the events of the past, including his own 
efibrts, and that this has been the case at every 
stage of his progress. But it is not the past, but 
the present character to which the action is con- 
formed, and how or when this was formed can 
make no possible difference to the present action 
— whether it has grown up slowly, under his 
observation, with or without his agency, or has 
fallen suddenly upon him from the clouds ready 
made, is not material ; the action which now 
conforms to it must still be the same. The doc- 
trine of freedom does not assert that the willinsi: 
being makes the conditions, external or internal, 
upon or under which he is to act, but admits 
that, in determining his own effort, he has refer- 
ence to these conditions, be they what they may. 
If his own effort has heretofore had anything to 
do with the formation of his character — has in 
any way modified it — it may now do the same, 
and he may so change his character at this in- 
stant that his action, conforming to the change, 
will be different from what the previous course 
of events would have produced. 

I have heretofore noted that the process by 
which we determine our effort is the same as 
that by which we change our characters. That, 
in both cases, it is by adding to our knowledge, 
and, hence, the two may be simultaneous ; and 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 169 

this interference with the chain of causation, 
reaching from the past (material or spiritual) by 
a new power thus instantaneously thrown in by 
a present effort, I hold to be a peculiar charac- 
teristic of volition, constituting the intelligent 
actor an independent, self-active power, or first 
cause, in creating the future. He might be 
such a power, though his general character 
never changed. He might always act in a man- 
ner consistent with such fixed character, and yet 
act freely. Or, yet further, he might still act 
with perfect freedom, even though his character 
were changed every instant by some extrinsic 
power. At each instant he could still direct his 
own action, and conform it to his own changed 
condition, and thus continue to be an indepen- 
dent power, varying in some of its characteris- 
tics. Through all his mutations, he might retain 
his self-control, and consequent freedom, in effort ; 
such change in the character of another is just 
what we often seek to effect when we w^ould im- 
prove his general modes of acting ; and it is in 
the ability to do this, by imparting new truth, 
that we can render the most essential aid to 
each other. In doing this, we act upon the pre- 
sumption that the being controls its own efforts, 
and conforms them to its own views ; for if its 
efforts are controlled by some extrinsic power, 
then, to change its efforts, we should seek to 
change the extrinsic power which controls them, 



170 ON CAUSATION AND 

and not tlie being in which they are but the 
manifested effects of this power. 

When, to change the action of another, we 
change the external conditions upon which he is 
to act, and produce a corresponding change in 
his knowledge, we do not thereby usually expect 
to change his general character, but only his 
view in the particular case as to what action, un- 
der the changed conditions, will suit him best, 
and very often only as to what, being as he is, 
will appear to him most expedient. But when 
we inculcate a new truth, touching the relations 
of action to duty and happiness, we may so 
change the general character, that the action 
upon the same conditions will thereafter be im- 
proved, or by inculcating selfish and false notions 
it may be deteriorated. As types of these two 
modes, we might instance, on one hand, the 
coarse appliances of power by Tamerlane, Charle- 
magne, or Napoleon ; and on the other, the finer 
influences of Plato, Howard, and Channing; Archi- 
medes, Galileo, Newton, and other scientists, occu- 
pying an intermediate ground. But the question, 
as between us, does not involve these extreme 
cases of fixedness of character, nor of incessant 
changes in its elements by extrinsic agencies. 
Upon the point that we can change our own 
characters, we do not differ. The admission of 
my positions, that change of character is always 
produced by some change in our knowledge, and 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 171 

that we can acquire knowledge by our own pri- 
mary efforts, would give a broader significance 
to your felicitous statement that "we are exactly 
as capable of making our own character, if lue 
zvill, as others are of making it for us." * But to 
get over the answer to this, which you ascribe to 
the Owenites, that " these words, ' if we will,' sur- 
render the whole point," I think you must go 
further, and admit that, in virtue of the inherent 
attributes of our intelligent, feeling, and active 
nature, we can act without being first acted upon 
by any extrinsic power ; and that our voluntary 
efforts are not mere terms, in a series of which 
each is controlled and determined, and made to 
be what it is by those which precede it; but 
that, with each new phase of conditions and cir- 
cumstances, we determine how we will act in 
reference to them, and may thus, with every 
such phase, begin a new series, resolving the 
whole into particular individuated acts, deter- 
mined in their succession only by our own intel- 
ligent perceptions of their fitness to the occasions 
as they arise. For if, as you hold, our volitions, 
like other phenomena, are the " necessary and 
inevitable " result of antecedent " causes which 
they uniformly and implicity obey," then, as our 
efforts to change our character are dependent 
upon these prior causes or antecedents, the change 
of our character by such efforts is also completely, 

* Logic, Book VI., Chap. II. 



172 ON CAUSATION AND 

though secondarily, so dependent. We are, thus, 
placed in a current of events in which we have 
no control over our destiny. It is true we do 
not merely float passively and self-motionless 
with this current, we swim ; but the movements 
of the limbs, which constitute the swimming, are 
produced or determined by the current, or by 
sections of it from behind us, as a part of the 
means by which the current really controls our 
course among the flowing events, and are not a 
self-exerted activity, induced by the intelligent 
perception of a desirable result to be produced 
in the future, and which, as yet, having no actual 
extrinsic existence, cannot be an extrinsic power. 
It, as yet, exists only as an intrinsic expectation. 
As germane to this portion of this subject, I 
would remark that I fully agree with you as to 
the legitimate objects of punishment ; but I 
would make some slight alterations in your 
statement, to show that it is, at least, as prop- 
erly resorted to upon the hypothesis of freedom 
as upon that of necessity, e. g., when you say, 
" Punishment proceeds upon the assumption that 
the will is governed by motives," I would say. 
Punishment proceeds on the assumption that the 
heing in willing is governed by motives, or that he 
governs himself with reference to that expecta- 
tion of the future result of his willing, which I 
hold constitutes the only motive to intelligent 
effort. Is it not obvious that prevention by mo- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 173 

tive is more properly applicable to the conditions 
of freedom than to those of necessity — to those 
who control their own actions rather than to 
those whose actions are controlled by some- 
thing else? Has not the whole world always 
acted upon this idea ? When a man is supposed 
to be ]?ossessed hy devils, and cannot control him- 
self, physical restraint is at once resorted to. We 
do not seek to change his willing, but to prevent 
his doing what he wills. When one is supposed 
to be self-possessed, and to be able to control his 
own actions, resort is first had to motive, to the 
threat of future punishment ; and if this does not 
prevent his willing to do wrong, he is forcibly 
deprived of the power to do the wrong by per- 
sonal restraint, or, in extreme cases, by the death 
penalty. 

I suppose you would consider the provision for 
punishing crime as among the past antecedents, 
making one of the prior links in the chain of 
cause and effect which determines the act. In 
harmony with this, you say, if punishment had no 
poiver of acting on the will, it would be illegitimate. 
I would regard such provision as one of the con- 
ditions v/hich changes the view, knowledge, or 
expectation of the mind as to what the effect of 
action counter to the law will be. The mere 
existence of the law has, in itself, no power to 
determine, or to change the determination of the 
being. If unknown, it might exist forever with- 



174 ON CAUSATION AND 

out any such effect, or tendency to it. But with 
the knowledge of its existence among the con- 
ditions, the being may itself deem best to vary 
its action from what it otherwise would be. 
Changing the conditions, by enacting a penal 
law, no more interferes with free agency than 
changing the conditions, by a move on the chess 
board, interferes with the freedom of one's oppo- 
nent in making his move to meet it. The agent, 
in both cases, must himself determine what, in 
view of the conditions as they now are, with the 
new law or the recent move, his own action will 
be ; and he does this just as fully, absolutely, and 
freelj^, under the existing conditions, as he would 
have done under any other conceivable condi- 
tions ; as freely as if no law had been passed, or 
he had to move with the pieces on the board in 
the same position as they were before the last 
move of his opponent was made. 

20. Upon the hypothesis that volition is but 
an event, which is determined by the prior events 
of the series, extrinsic or intrinsic, or both, the 
status and condition of every being, whose exist- 
ence has had a beginning, must be determined 
by circumstances over which he has no control ; 
for his first action must have been so determined, 
and this, in connection with other circumstances, 
all likewise controlled by their antecedents, must 
successively predetermine each term of the series. 
The whole character and condition of the being, 



FREEDOM IN WILLTNa. 17-5 

as before suggested, would thus depend upon the 
time at which he was thus dropped into the cur- 
rent of flowing events, if, at one instant, it may 
be predestined to unvaried virtue and happiness, 
and, if the next, to eternal degradation and mis- 
ery. Upon this phase of the necessitarian argu- 
ment, there is no reason to suppose that so long 
as the spirit exists it can escape this chain of 
cause and effect, or to expect that even death 
will break its links ; and hence, having once 
commenced, it matters not whether it here con- 
tinues to be the subject of it for an hour or a 
century. Hence, a metaphysical logical basis is 
made for the doctrine of election and reproba- 
tion, including that of infant damnation. 

That this necessitarian view, that all events, 
including volitions, are in a chain of cause and 
effect, in which each successive link is forged 
and fashioned by those which precede it, thus 
logically sustains a doctrine which, however for- 
bidding in its aspect, has been held by good, sin- 
cere, and zealous men, including learned divines 
and intelligent laity, may, perhaps, be regarded 
by some as a confirmation of the verity of the 
position. I confess that, aside from any meta- 
phj^sical reasoning, I have looked upon this be- 
lief as so unnatural and repulsive, so repugnant 
to all our notions of the goodness, justice^, and 
benevolence which predominate in the universe, 
that any attempt to reconcile the obvious incom- 



176 ON CAUSATION AND 

patibility would be hopeless ; and, hence, have re- 
garded it as an error, which it was the province 
of philosophy to expose, and to show how it came 
to be believed. The specious argument from 
cause and effect, in some of its aspects, I think, 
accomplishes this latter object ; but I do not see 
how you can reconcile it with your belief that 
we can form our own characters, and that the 
character, or the elements of it, controls our vol- 
untary actions. 

In granting this much, it seems to me you sur- 
render the whole ground, for, in making our 
characters, we virtually, so far, determine all the 
future volitions which are dependent upon its 
being what it is, i e., what we thus make it. 

In other places, I have remarked upon our 
power to change our own characters, and pointed 
out some of the means which we possess for do- 
ing it.* I find these in the efforts demanded by 
the constitutional wants of our spiritual nature, 
the alternations of its desires for activity and re- 
pose, its craving for variety and for progress, 
and in the fact that our actual physical wants 
are, in their nature, temporary, leaving intervals 
demanding no efibrt for their gratification, in 
which the mind turns inwardly to itself, and 
there gratifies its desire for activity in the imagi- 
nary conception — the ideal creation — of such 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book I. Chap. XIV., and Lan- 
guage, p. 98, Boston edition. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 177 

action as its moral and aesthetic nature require. 
In this castle-building, the mind may find a pleas- 
urable and improving exercise of its creative 
powers, in which, freed from the temptations of 
actual life, from the distractions of sense, and the 
immediate sway of the bodily appetites and vul- 
gar passions, it decides, disinterestedly, as to what 
is good, and beautiful, and noble in conduct, and 
provides itself with ideal cases, to be practically 
applied as occasions for them arise. 

The alternation of desire for repose and activi- 
ty, and especially as coupled with the want for 
variety, has a tendency to break in upon the 
continuity of the succession of events as deter- 
mined by other causes, and to furnish each mind 
with occasions for the beojinnino; of new and in- 
dependent action, and for new series of efforts. 
But, however important this ability to change 
one's own character, and its exercise, may be to 
the happiness of the individual and to the gen- 
eral welfare, it has no bearing upon the freedom 
of the agent; for, as just stated, he may be just 
as free if his character is never changed at all, 
either by himself or by others, though it could 
hardly so happen that experience in action and 
in planning it, should not make such addition 
to his knowledge as would, in fact, change hi& 
character. 

It may also be observed that, upon the hypoth- 
esis of necessity, society loses that incentive ta 
12 



178 ON CAUSATION AND 

the improvement of its members which arises 
from the interest it has in their good acting ; for 
if the improved being does not control his own 
action, there is no ground for supposing that his 
action will be any better for his improvement. 

It' might, in such case, even be to the interest 
of society to deteriorate the character of such 
of its members as are controlled by extrinsic ma- 
lignant powers or forces. It is not expedient 
to give the greatest ef&ciency to the enemy's 
weapons. 

I have before pointed out, generally, that the 
regarding every event as the necessary and uni- 
form sequence of its antecedents, acting with the 
uniformity alleged of cause and effect, necessi- 
tates the hypothesis of a multiplicity of causes 
in the beginning ; for if we trace back the vari- 
ous series till we get a starting point which is 
common to all, then, the antecedents being the 
same to all, the succession of phenomena in all 
must be the same. Starting with unity we could 
thus never get into diversity of being. This ap- 
plies to the formation of character, as well as to 
other events. 

If, however, a being has in itself a faculty of 
activity, and the knowledge to exert and direct its 
action, it is not material to the question in hand 
what its other characteristics may be, much less 
how acquired ; for though his being good or bad, 
wise or foolish, may make a great difference as 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 179 

to the design and nature of the efforts made, it 
makes none as to the freedom of the being in 
makinor them. It is obvious that an effort is 
neither more or less constrained for being either 
good or bad in itself, in its design, or in its con- 
sequences, or for being put forth by a good or 
bad being. However such conative beings may 
be differentiated from each other, they are equal- 
ly free. A demon is as free as an angel. What 
object any one will select, i. e., what effect he 
will try to produce in the future, may depend 
upon his character ; but this does not affect his 
freedom in trying to do what he selects as the 
object of his effort; and that his effort is in con- 
formity to his character, certainly does not indi- 
cate that he is not the author and originator of 
his effort. 

A being, one of whose characteristics is, as in 
the case you state, " that he dreads a departure 
from virtue more than any personal consequen- 
ces," is, in fact, virtuous ; and that in action he 
manifests such virtue — that his action is in con- 
formity to his character — indicates that he di- 
rects his own action rather than the reverse. If 
the acts of a virtuous person, of one " who dreads 
a departure from virtue more than any personal 
consequence," were vicious, the inference then 
would be that he did not direct his own action. 
If he acts freely, it is impossible that his charac- 
ter and actions should be in opposition, for the 



180 ON CAUSATION AND 

voluntary actions are then but indices of the 
intentions, and it is in the intentions that the 
essence of virtue inheres. If the person were 
viciouSj the conformity of his action to his vi- 
cious character would equally indicate his free- 
dom. Any necessity that there is that the acts 
or efforts of a virtuous person must be virtuous, 
is only that which arises from the impossibility 
of his being both virtuous and vicious at the 
same time, or in the same act. 

Probably no one will contend that the free- 
dom or non-freedom of effort is affected by the 
cast of the particular characters of the individual 
actor in these respects. 

21. The necessitarian argument on this point, 
like that on the influence of the external condi- 
tions, is general, asserting that as the effort must, 
in all cases, conform to the character, the effort 
is determined and controlled by the character, 
and hence is not free. 

Your argument virtually asserts that a man's 
volitions are not free, because he has a character 
to which they must or do conform. On this 
ground it can make no difference what the char- 
acteristics are by which the being is distin- 
guished ; as before stated, some characteristics 
are essential to its existence as a distinct being, 
and the argument for necessity is, that the neces- 
sary conformity (not to say identity) of volition 
and character proves that the mind is not free 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 181 

in its willing ; and this, in one of its phases, is to 
assert that if one of the distinguishing character- 
istics of the being is that it acts freely, then it 
cannot act freely, because its action must con- 
form to this characteristic ; which, again, is to say 
that the being is not free, because, as constituted, 
it cannot be otherwise than free. Again, this 
argument assumes that the character is some- 
thing distinct from, and extrinsic to, the willing 
being which it is supposed to determine and con- 
trol, for otherwise it would prove the self-control 
and consequent freedom of the being. But, even 
admitting the necessary conformity as alleged, 
and yet farther that the being and its character 
may be regarded as two distinct entities extrin- 
sic to each other, the inference of necessity is not 
legitimate; for, prima facie, as already suggested, 
it is at least as reasonable to infer that the active 
being conforms its acts to its character, as that 
the character (which in itself is passive) conforms 
the acts to itself 

If the being and the character are regarded as 
one, or the character as the attribute of the be- 
ing, then this argument of the necessitarians 
amounts only to an assertion that the acts must, 
or always will, conform to the character of the 
agent, and " must," or the uniformity expressed 
by " always will," implying necessity, and neces- 
sity excluding freedom, the agent is not free in 
such acts. 



182 ON CAUSATION AND 

But this invariable conformity of the acts to 
the character of the active agent, is precisely 
what we would expect if he controlled his own 
acts, and indicates that he does so control them, 
and consequently is free in such acts ; while, on 
the other hand, control of the acts by an extrin- 
sic being, power, or force, with a different char- 
acter, would furnish no ground of presumption 
that the acts would be conformed to the char- 
acter of the actor, if the being in which the ac- 
tion was manifested could then be called the actor. 

That the observed motion in a body was found 
to be always in conformity to the inclination, de- 
sire, or habit of a certain being, would be strong 
presumptive proof that this being controlled the 
motion. So, too, if the effort of a being was 
found to be always in conformity to the inclina- 
tion, desires, and habits of some being extrinsic 
to, and differing in these characteristics from 
that in which the acts occurred, this fact would 
indicate that the acts were controlled by this ex- 
trinsic intelligence. And this conformity of the 
acts of will to the inclinations, desires, and habits 
of the actor, which is on all sides admitted, must 
be regarded as even more conclusively indicating 
that in these the active being controls its own 
actions, and especially as no one contends that 
the acts thus conform to the character of any 
other being; in which case, the control, as be- 
tween them, might be in question. Taking 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 183 

intention into account, there can no more be 
discrepancy between the free volitions and the 
general character of a being than between the 
aggregate of four groups of four each, and six- 
teen ; for the sum of such volitions must either 
make up, or precisely represent and indicate the 
general character, whether it be what, in com- 
parison with others, we would call an inconsis- 
tent or a consistent one. The efforts of a man 
are the exponents and measures of his character. 
The summation of his efforts and the resultants 
of his character are equivalents ; and if our idea 
of character is identical with or involves that of 
what the man will try to do ; — if, for instance, 
our conception of a just man is identical with 
that of a man who wills to do justice, then all 
this reasoning to prove the necessary conformity 
of the volitions to the character, only affirms the 
truism that the thing is of necessity equal to and 
like itself Any necessity in the case is merely 
the necessity that the action of a being acting 
freely will not be in contravention to its charac- 
ter ; which is merely to say that the manifestation 
of the heing's character in action will be a manifesta- 
tion of the character of tlwd being, and not a mani- 
festation of a different character, i. e., what is, is 
as it is, and not as it is not. 

The fact, then, that the effort must be, or al- 
ways is, in conformity to the character, so far 
from indicating any want of freedom, indicates 



184 ON CAUSATION AND 

that the being controls its own efforts, and hence 
in willing, acts freely. 

22. The foregoing reasoning deals with the 
character generally, and may serve to show that 
conformity of the action to it does not indicate 
any want of self-control or freedom in the actor, 
but the contrary ; and, if so, it fully meets the 
argument which necessitarians have founded upon 
this conformity ; but the importance which is at- 
tached to the argument by philosophers, and the 
hold which it has upon the popular mind, claims 
for it a more detailed examination. 

The word " disposition " sometimes means the 
present inclination in the particular case, and 
sometimes that fixed general character which is 
formed or indicated by the general course or 
habit of action. 

I have already treated of the conformity of the 
volition to the character generally, and have re- 
marked that the character may be changed in 
and by the process by which we determine our 
actions. Hence, though the action may always 
conform to the character as it is at the instant, it 
cannot be said that there is always a general and 
habitual disposition to which the volition is in- 
variably conformed. It is the variation in par- 
ticular cases from the general conduct that 
makes the inconsistencies of character, good or 
bad, which are universally admitted to exist in 
most human natures, and which, perhaps of 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 185 

necessity, pertain to all beings neither perfectly 
wise, nor yet confined in their actions to the 
purely instinctive modes, the knowledge of 
which is innate or intuitive. 

As applied to the particular occasions of ac- 
tion, dispositions, in common with inclinations 
and desires, are but modifications of want. 
Whatever a man has a disposition, inclination, 
or desire to possess or enjoy, he wants to possess 
or enjoy. Whatever he is disposed, inclined, or 
desirous to do, he ivants to do ; though the use of 
these terms often implies that the want is not so 
urgent as to overcome conflicting wants and hin- 
derances. They are often used to signify what a 
man would try to do if he could separate the 
effect of his effort from some undesirable conse- 
quence of it, or if his trying did not prevent 
some other desirable effort, or interfere with a 
desirable ease. They do not exclusively apply 
to the final decision made in view of all conflict- 
ing wants and inducements. 

In such cases, the use of these terms suggests 
the various desirable efforts, or objects of effort, 
among which, by a preliminary examination, we 
make a selection, or perhaps reject them all, and 
make no further effort in regard to them, thouarh 
it might still be said we had a disposition or an 
inclination to do so. This preliminary examina- 
tion is always an effort to increase our knowl- 
edge, and the conclusion, when reached, is merely 



186 ON CAUSATION AND 

the knowledge that, all things considered, it will 
suit us best to try to do this rather than that, or 
not to do either. I have before noted that the 
general or habitual character is liable to be 
changed by the additions to our knowledge, ob- 
tained in these preliminary examinations w'hich 
we make for the purpose of determining our ac- 
tions ; and would now remark, that the particular 
inclination or disposition of the occasion is still 
more obviously liable to be changed in this pro- 
cess. The object of it often is to test the expe- 
diency of such change in the existing inclina- 
tion. That with every new discovery as to the 
effects of a contemplated effort, or as to what 
other desirable results may be reached by effort, 
our inclination as to what effort we will make 
may also change is very apparent. 

There ma}^ be conflicting inclinations, desires, 
or aversions, among which we must, by the pre- 
liminary examination, make our choice. We may 
also desire what we know that we cannot attain 
by effort, or loathe what no effort of ours "".vill 
prevent ; and in such case, even though we may 
have decided as to the relative desirableness of 
the various objects compared, w^e still may not 
desire or choose to make an effort to attain it, 
which we know or apprehend would not be suc- 
cessful. It is not, then, till the disposition, in- 
clination, and desires have thus culminated in a 
preference or choice to try to do, that they have 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 187 

any immediate relation to the particular action ; 
and choice being the knowledge (or belief) that 
one thing suits us better than another, this rela- 
tion is that of a form of knowledge to action ; 
and their prior relation to action generally, was 
through the knowledge that effort is the mode 
of gratifying the disposition, inclination, or desire 
for some change, either directly or by a prelim- 
inary effort to attain the knowledge of the par- 
ticular mode required to do it. By such knowl- 
edge, the effort by which we may best gratify our 
want is determined, and the question between 
effort and non-effort decided. 

Referring to the position that all these charac- 
teristics constitute the being, and make it what 
it is, there is, perhaps, even less appearance of 
reason to infer necessity from the conformity of 
action to the separate elements, than was found 
in such conformity to the general aggregate 
character. That the present volition, in each 
particular case, is as the present inclination, is 
not only indicative of freedom, but is essential to 
its manifestation; for any deviation from this 
would imply restraint or coercion, preventing us 
from doing (trying being in this case the doing) 
what of ourselves we would do, or compelling us 
to do what of ourselves we would not do. 

The argument of the necessitarians, which has 
been applied to the whole character, as applied 
to the elements of which that character is com- 



188 ON CAUSATION AND 

posed, asserts that, as the volition must be in 
conformity to the disposition, inclination, and 
desires of the willing being, it is controlled or 
constrained by this necessity, and hence is not 
free. Having shown that the final relation of 
these affections to action is in the form of choice, 
I may now urge that this argument virtually as- 
serts that, as the effort of a being must of neces- 
sity conform to his choice, he is, therefore, ne- 
cessitated, and not free in his effort. But this 
conformity to choice, evincing our self-control, is 
the especial characteristic of freedom. In doing, 
we do freely when we do as we choose. If walk- 
ing is the thing to be done, we walk freely when 
we walk as we choose ; when willing is the thing 
to be done, we will freely when we will as we 
choose. 

This is, perhaps, the ultimate analysis of those 
views which, in looking at the subject, often lead 
one to regard freedom in willing as a truism ; the 
fact of willing absolutely implying freedom, the 
opposite position of willing, and yet not willing 
freely, involving incompatible ideas, and finding 
expression only in the contradiction of willing 
when we are unwilling or not willing, and, in 
such aspect of the subject, it seems to require 
some logical entanglement before there can be 
any question or difficulty to be solved or ex- 
plained. The argument for necessity, thus drawn 
from the inevitable conformity of effort to choice, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 189 

is in the same line, and only one step removed 
from that in which Edwards argues, that a voli- 
tion cannot be free, because it is subject' to the 
willing agent ; which is to say, it is not free be- 
cause it cannot be otherwise than free, or is thus 
subject to the necessity, or constrained to be 
free. A sophism arising out of the vague, loose, 
and contradictory ideas, which, in the absence of 
any definition of it, have obtained in regard to 
mental freedom, to which I have already several 
times alluded. 

23. While disposition and cognate terms are 
often used as indicating the general or formed 
character, the term habit is exclusively so ap- 
plied, as when we say a man's habits are good, or 
are bad -, and for this the tendency to persist in 
habits once formed, which I have endeavored to 
account for,* furnishes good ground. 

I have shown that the distinguishing charac- 
teristic of habitual actions is, that in them we 
adopt the modes we have previously discovered, 
thereby saving ourselves the labor and perplex- 
ity of the preliminary examination. We thus 
work by memory, and use the knowledge before 
acquired, instead of seeking new. The compara- 
tive ease of thus working is an inducement to 
adopt the habitual mode, and is an economy 
which greatly facilitates us in action. If we 
find modes still more easy or more beneficial, we 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Chap. XI. 



190 ON CAUSATION AND 

adopt them; or when, in our estimation, the 
chances of finding such more than compensate 
for the additional effort of seeking them, we 
make the effort to find them. 

Habit is not, then, as some seem to suppose, a 
mysterious something, which, getting into the 
mind, becomes there a distinct power or force, 
inciting, urging, or compelling it to act in a 
given certain prescribed way, or restraining it 
in all others, but is itself only a result of a rea- 
son perceived by the mind for adopting a course 
of action which it has before thought out, and 
which previous experience has made easy, and 
shown to be attended with satisfactory results. 
It is only a name for a particular phase of the 
general relation of knowledge to action. The 
mind, in such cases, still directs its effort to the 
object by means of its knowledge of the mode, 
which, in such cases, being ready formed through 
memory, can at once be used, relieving the mind 
of the labor of working out a mode for the par- 
ticular occasion. The control of volitions at- 
tributed to the force of habitual actions, might 
with as much reason be predicated of customary 
or imitative actions, in which we adopt certain 
plans or modes of action, because we have known 
other people to do so in like cases ; the only dif- 
ference being, that in the habitual, we have, in 
similar circumstances, known ourselves, and in 
the customary, have known others adopt the 
morlf> or nlan with satisfactory results. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 191 

That such imitation of the actions of others 
has not been urged against freedom, as well as 
imitations of our own, is probably due to the fact 
that the former have always been well under- 
stood, while the latter have been involved in 
doubt and mystery — - a fit covert for the fancied 
extrinsic causative power which is supposed to 
produce or control our volitions. 

The reasons against making the general char- 
acter, or the elements of it before mentioned, a 
distinct entity, with power to control the volition 
of the being which they characterize, will gener- 
ally apply also to habit, and with this addition. 
It is not contended that the influence of habit ap- 
plies to any other than habitual actions. Habit 
is the result of repetition. The first action of 
the kind cannot be habitual, the second may be, 
and when repeated by memory of the former act 
it is so ; and to make habit, which is itself formed 
by this repetition of the actions, the cause of the 
repeated actions is to make the acts collectively 
the cause of themselves individually, involving 
the position that the collective cases existed 
prior to the individual cases, of which they are 
themselves composed. 

I have heretofore shown the influence of habit 
in intensifying our wants, and in removing the 
hinderances to our efforts for their gratification.* 
It appears, then, that this conformity of action to 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Chap. XI. 



192 ON CAUSATION AND 

the disposition, inclination, desires, or habits, 
whether they are regarded separately or as 
combined in the general character, is, in the last 
analysis, but the conformity of the action of a 
being to its own notion of what it wants to do, 
and the manner of doing it, which argues the 
self-control and consequent freedom of the will- 
ing being ; and, on the other hand, that any dis- 
crepancy of action with the general character 
of the actor, or with any of the elements of it, 
would indicate that he did not control his ac- 
tions, and was, therefore, not free. 

On this point, then, the advocates of necessity 
seem to have taken a position which is against 
themselves, and would have better sustained 
their ground if they could have asserted that 
the volitions are, or may be, in conflict with our 
dispositions, inclinations, desires, and habits, or 
with the general character of the agent willing. 

24. The influence of " motive " is much re- 
lied upon by the advocates of necessity. I have 
heretofore * pointed out the vicious circle in 
which this is applied b}^ Edwards, first assert- 
ing that the will is determined by that which 
influences it ; next, that everything which in- 
fluences the will is a motive ; and then, that a 
motive is anything and everything that influ- 
ences the will. 

The illusion generally seems to be in covertly 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book II. Chap. X. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 193 

assuming that the word motive is itself, or that it 
represents, some distinct entity, which has power 
to influence or to determine the mind in willing, 
and then, without pointing out any such entity, 
reasoning upon the assumption that motive is a 
power distinct from the mind that wills. 

Some such definition, and inferences from it, 
seem to have been in Sir William Hamilton's 
mind, when, in his reply to Reid's assertion that 
motives are not cause (which I understand you 
to quote with approbation,) * he says, " Can we 
conceive any act, of which there was not a suffi- 
cient cause or concourse of causes, why the man 
performed it, and no other? If not, call this 
cause, or these concauses, the motive, and there is 
no longer any dispute." 

A change of name cannot alter the facts, or 
the proper inferences from them. A asserts 
that stones will appease hunger. B denies this. 
A replies, but you admit that bread will ; now 
call the bread stones, and there is no longer any 
dispute. Suppose Reid should grant all Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton demands — that every act has a 
cause, and that cause should be called motive — 
alid then assert that the active being is itself 
cause of its action ; would there be " no. longer a 
dispute " ? Hamilton seems to think it essential 
to the freedom of the active being that his action 
or effort should not be directed or determinedj 

* Review of Sir William Hamilton, Chap. XXVD. 

13 



194 ON CAUSATION AND 

either by the being himself, or by anything else, 
and in seeking for something which will corre- 
spond to this expression, or definition of free- 
dom, is really seeking what is self-contradictory ; 
viz., a being acting freely, and yet not controlling 
its own action. I do not assert that the mind's 
effort springs into existence contingently, but 
admit that it always perceives some inducement 
to make the effort, and have no objection to call- 
ing this inducement a motive. I agree with you 
and with Hamilton, that a motiveless volition is 
impossible ; but I deem it essential to inquire 
what this motive is, and what its relations to 
action, before deciding that it conflicts with free- 
dom. In your enumeration of the various influ- 
ences to volition, in the passage I have quoted, 
you do not use the word motives, but you evi- 
dently apply the phrase "moral antecedents" as 
its equivalent, and regard them as constituting 
the motives. Among these, "desires and aver- 
sions" are made prominent. Conformably to 
this, in your work on Logic, you speak of a wish 
as a motive. Desires and aversions are not dis- 
tinct entities, having in themselves power for any 
purpose, but are merely names, indicating cer- 
tain states of mind ; and, if in these states the 
mind still controls its action, it is then free. The 
mind's state of desire is only one of the elements, 
in a combination of things and circumstances, in 
the perceptions of which, and of their relations, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 195 

the mind finds a reason for acting, and for the 
manner of its acting ; but no one of these ele- 
ments, nor any combination of them, can devise 
the plan of action to reach the desired result, or 
can act it out when devised. This must be done 
by the intelligent active being which perceives 
the reason, and not by the outward conditions, 
nor by the states of the being, nor by any com- 
bination of them. To any and all of these, such 
perception of the reason for the action, and of 
its fitness to produce the desired effect, is impos- 
sible. 

I much doubt, however, if desires or aversions, 
though closely allied to motives as their neces- 
sary prerequisites, can themselves be deemed 
motives. Used, generally, as implying formed 
subsisting characteristics of the individual, they 
cannot be so regarded. They might exist for 
any time without moving or tending to move to 
action. That a man's character is such that he 
uniformly desires justice or abhors injustice, can- 
not, of itself, induce or produce effort. He may 
also, in the same general sense, and at the same 
time, desire peace and abhor violence, desire 
beauty and hate deformity, desire nectar and 
detest tobacco, but could not make effort in all 
the directions indicated by these multifarious de- 
sires and aversions at the same time. In regard to 
the particular desire or aversion of the time be- 
ing, one may desire things to remain as they are, 



196 ON CAUSATION AND 

and, seeing no liability to change, make no effort ; 
or, desiring change, and seeing that it will be 
effected without his agency, still put forth no 
effort. He may desire an aurora, or have an 
aversion to thunder ; but knowing no mode of 
procuring the one, or of preventing the other, 
make no effort for either purpose ; and until he 
perceives that he may attain the one or avert 
the other, he can hardly be said to have any mo- 
tive to make an effort to attain or avert. In its 
relation to action, an aversion is equivalent to a 
desire to avoid the object of aversion. And de- 
sire, which, as before observed, is equivalent to 
want, does not itself produce action, but is one 
of the passive conditions to which the mind, by 
means of its intelligence — ■ its knowledge — ■ ac- 
commodates its action in seeking to obtain the 
end desired ; and the motive to effort is always the 
mind's expectation of the future effect of its effort, its 
knowledge, or belief, that by effort it will or may 
produce the result desired. 

25. If the preceding analysis is correct, all 
the relations of the affections, including disposi- 
tion, inclination, desires, habits, and motives to 
effort, are concentrated in knowledge and want. 
I have before reached the same result in regard 
to the influence of the external conditions, and, 
from the nature of the subjects, having been 
obliged to so far consider these external and in- 
ternal influences in connection with each other, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 197 

no separate examination of them in combination 
is needed. 

This, then, brings us to the position you have 
taken in the argument which I quoted in my let- 
ter on " Causation." * In the main I accept your 
statement of my position. As you sa}^, I do " al- 
low that volition requires the previous existence 
of two things, which the mind itself did not 
make ; at least, not directly, nor in most cases 
at all — a knowledge and a want." I also " admit, 
not only that the knowledge and want are con- 
ditions precedent to the will, but that the char- 
acter of the will invariably corresponds to that 
of the knowledge and want." Though not, per- 
haps, important, it may be proper for me to say 
that I would not admit " that any variation in 
either of these determines, or, at least, is sure to 
be followed by, a corresponding variation in the 
volition." If, for instance, I want a metal, and 
know that copper for my purpose is worth twice 
as much as tin, and is just as easily obtained, my 
volition or action would not be altered by learn- 
ing that it was really worth four times as much. 
I agree with you, then, that the volition does in- 
variably correspond to the prerequisite knowl- 
edge and want; or, more strictly speaking, to 
the mind's knowledge of the mode of gratifying 
its want, but differ with you as to this fact being 
in any way favorable to the argument for neces- 

* Page 3. 



198 ON CAUSATION AND 

sity, or against that for freedom. Thus agreeing 
in facts so nearly ultimate, and adopting the 
definition I have given of liberty, it would seem 
that there is little room for us to differ, except 
in the name of the resultant fact. I contend 
that it is properly called freedom, for the very 
essence of freedom in effort must lie in a man's 
not being restrained or constrained in trying to 
do what he wants done, or wants to try to do, 
and in his not being prevented or hindered in 
thus trying to do, in conformity to his own no- 
tion or perception — to his own knowledge, of 
the most proper mode of doing it. 

It would be a very queer sort of freedom by 
virtue of which a man would or could do, or try 
to do, what he did not want to do, or to try to 
do ; or in the exercise of which he would or 
could adopt some mode of doing, or of trying to 
do, which did not conform to his own notion or 
perception of the proper mode — would actually 
try a mode which he did not want to try. This 
would indicate a freedom to be not free. 

The invariability, here admitted, between the 
volition and the mind's antecedent knowledge of 
what it wants, and the means of attaining its 
object, only indicates that the conative being in- 
variably conforms its effort to its own notion of 
the mode of attaining its end ; and if in this there 
is any necessity, it is not a necessity that implies 
any restraint or control of the active being, but 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 199 

a necessity growing out of the perfect self-con- 
trol, which is the essential condition of its own 
freedom — the necessity that free actions must 
invariably be free. 

26. The act must be so conformed by some 
cause or power. The only essential elements in 
the case are the active being with his knowledge 
of a mode of gratifying his want, and his effort, 
and the conditions to be acted upon and changed. 
The questions as to the control of the conditions, 
intrinsic or extrinsic, intelligent or unintelligent, 
have already been disposed of Effort, as before 
observed, is a state or condition of the mind, and 
not a thing or entity, with the attribute of power 
in any form, or which can itself make effort, or 
that has the knowledge to direct itself, or to 
direct effort in anything else, by devising a sin- 
gle mode, or choosing between different modes 
of trying to do, or which can know and conform 
itself to the mind's knowledge of the mode of 
effort required by the existing conditions. As 
well say N. 20° E. makes the hurricane, or causes 
it to blow from that point, when such happens to 
be its direction or characteristic. So, also, want 
and knowledge are states and conditions of be- 
ing, and not entities, which themselves want and 
know, or which separately or combined can act, 
devise, or direct action, or know what action will 
conform to the perceptions of the actor as to the 
means of gratifying his want, or that can trans- 



200 ON CAUSATION AND 

form themselves into a volition conforming to 
such perception or otherwise. This invariable 
conformity of the violition to the infinite variety 
of the mind's views cannot be the effect of blind, 
unintelligent force, but must be by something 
which knows the views of the willing being, to 
which the volition is be to conformed, and, at the 
same time, has the power to so conform it. It 
must be the result of some intelligent, designing 
action, intrinsic or extrinsic to the being in which 
the conformity is manifested. To attribute this 
conformity directly to the active being itself that 
wants, and that knows the mode of gratifying the 
want to which its action is to be conformed, is 
natural and simple. To suppose that the act is 
thus conformed by an extrinsic intelligence in- 
volves all the difficulties of the first position, and 
others much greater, for this extrinsic intelligence 
must itself have a separate want of its own — 
must want to conform the volition of the other 
to that other's views of the mode of acting — must 
itself have a view of some mode of producing this 
conformity, and a faculty of effort by which it 
can try to produce it. So far, the elements ap- 
parently, and in terms, correspond ; but, under 
the latter hypothesis, the causative agent's knowl- 
edge must embrace the perceptions of the other 
being as to the mode of effort, as well as his own, 
and he must also know some mode of controlling 
the volition of that other being ; and to do this 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 201 

directly there is not only no mode experiment- 
ally known, but none which is conceivable ; and 
if the only mode of doing it indirectly is by first 
changing the knowledge of the willing being, 
then, the extrinsic attempt to so conform the vo- 
lition involves a change in that to which it is to 
be conformed, which, in this case, defeats that 
conforming of the volition to the knowledge 
which was first attempted, that knowledge be- 
ing changed in the process by which the con- 
forming to it is attempted ; and so of any succes- 
sive attempts. In this process the extrinsic in- 
telligent power will always be one step short of 
its object, showing that such conforming to the 
actual existing knowledge, by an extrinsic power, 
in this indirect manner, is also impossible. 

To illustrate this, let C represent the being 
whose act is to be controlled ; E, the extrinsic 
agent who is to control it ; «', the present knowl- 
edge of C, to which E is to cause C to conform 
his action. C, with his present knowledge, either 
will not act at all, or will not act in conformity 
to his knowledge «', and to cause him to act or 
to vary his action, some addition must be made 
to his knowledge, so that it will become d + x, 
and to this, and not to the knowledge a', the ac- 
tion must now be conformed. The only way, 
then, in which this conformity of act to knowl- 
edge can be thus brought about, is to conform 
the act, not to the existing knowledge, but to it 



202 ON CAUSATION AND 

plus the addition to it required to cause the be- 
ing to act, and to direct its action, still further 
complicating the problem of extrinsic control. 

As we never commit the blunder of attempt- 
ing to make the act of another conform to his 
knowledge, this difficulty does not practically 
arise. What we do attempt to do, is to change 
the knowledge or views of another, so that the 
act which he himself conforms to it will be as we 
desire it to be. 

Again : the only ground upon which the voli- 
tion of a being can be supposed to be indirectly 
affected by change of its knowledge is, that such 
being will itself conform its action to its changed 
knowledge, so that this hypothesis of external 
control, in this mode, still involves the necessity 
of the intrinsic control which it was intended to 
discard or deny. 

It may be objected that this reasoning assumes 
that the mind does finally determine its own act 
of will, and that its determination can only be 
altered by changing its want and knowledge. 
But, even if this objection is valid, the reasoning 
still meets your position, which virtually is, that 
the mind does determine its volition, but is 
determined to determine by the pre-existing 
knowledge and want which cause the mind to 
vary its determination or volition, as themselves 
vary. 

There is this further radical difference between 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 203 

intrinsic and extrinsic control, that, under the 
hypothesis of intrinsic control, the conformity is 
consummated and established by the effort to do, 
whether successful or not ; whereas, in the case 
of extrinsic control, it is only established when 
the effort to produce the conformity is successful, 
involving the necessity of actual poiver to do, in 
addition to the ability and the knowledge before 
mentioned to try to do. If the extrinsic inteMi- 
gence tried, but failed to do, there would, on the 
extrinsic hypothesis, be no volition in the mind 
of the other being corresponding to his want and 
knowledge. If these views do not go the whole 
length of proving that the extrinsic hypothesis 
is absolutely inconceivable or impossible, I think 
I may still claim that they show that it is absurd 
to adopt it in preference to the intrinsic, and that 
we are logically reduced to the necessity of be- 
lieving that the volition is conformed to the want 
and knowledge, not by any extrinsic power or 
force, but by the willing being himself, and such 
conforming being, in fact, the controlling or 
directing of his volition or effort, he in such 
volition or ejBfort acts freely. 

27. Though the foregoing reasoning seems 
to me to meet your suggestion that the " varia- 
tion" in the knowledge or want "determines" 
the volition, and that these are not future, but 
present, or, rather, past facts, I would further 
remark that it already appears that it is the 



204 ON CAUSATION AND 

intelligent active being that determines, in view 
of its want and of the other conditions; and 
that even if want and knowledge, into which, 
so far as action is concerned, all past existence is 
now concentrated, are regarded as extrinsic to 
the willing being, they are then but extrinsic 
conditions, in which the mind perceives reasons 
for its action, and are not poivers that act; and 
further, that the want, thus regarded, like other 
conditions, is influential only as recognized or 
embraced in the mind's view ; and hence, in the 
last analysis, volition is dependent only on the 
mind's knowledge. Knowledge induces effort 
only when it embraces some desirable change to 
be effected, and some mode of action which will 
effect it — a preconception of a desirable future 
effect of its effort. This preconception, you truly 
say, is antecedent to the volition. But there is, 
obviously, no power in this prophetic knowledge 
to make an effort or to determine its direction. 
The knowledge or view of the actor as to the 
future effect, which is to him a reason for his 
action, and which always constitutes his sole 
motive, is only a passive possession or attribute 
of the being that exerts power, and not a thing 
that of itself has power, or that can make or 
direct effort. The knowledge itself, or the event 
of knowing, might exist for ages without pro- 
ducing or determining any volition. 

28. It has already appeared that it cannot 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 205 

be the past events which conform the action to 
themselves or to anything else, or in any wise 
influence it ; for if the memory is in fault, or is so 
perverted that our recollections are directly the 
reverse of what actually occurred, our effort will 
be conformed, not to the events which did occur, 
but to our recollection or impression- — our knowl- 
edge of them. 

Still, it may be said that this knowledge or 
belief, right or wrong, is the product of past 
causes, which, thus in advance, determine what 
course of action the mind will adopt in virtue 
of that knowledge, and of its consequent percep- 
tion of the relation of the effect of its action to 
its want. This point I have already discussed, 
but will here add, that the knowledge being a 
portion of the characteristics which make the 
being what it is, and distinguish it from what it 
is not, the same reasoning which has been applied 
to the position that the character is formed in 
the past will apply to this position also, and 
especially as it is only by change of knowledge 
that change of character is effected. The knowl- 
edge, however acquired, is now that of the being, 
and not the possession or attribute of the past ; 
and if it were, there is no conceivable way in 
which the past could use it to control or direct 
the action of an intelligent being. It is not the 
facts which have existed in the past, nor the fact 
that they are now remembered, but the ability 



206 ON CAUSATION AND 

which the being now has to anticipate the future, 
which is an element in the direction of its eJBTorts 
to the end desired ; and it is of no consequence 
when or how it acquired the knowledge which is 
requisite to this ability. The question is not 
how or when the being came to be as he is, with 
such attributes as he has, but still is whether, 
being such a being as he is, he now wills freely. 
His present perceptions of what now is, his 
present memories of the past, and his present 
anticipations of the future, make up the sum of 
his present knowledge ; and if he now has a 
knowledge of the future by which he can and 
does direct his effort wisely and successfully, or 
otherwise, it is of no consequence to his freedom 
in directing, what particular things he knows, or 
how or when his knowledge was acquired. The 
present relation of his knowledge to the control 
of his effort, whatever that knowledge may con- 
sist of, or when or how acquired, is the same. 
The fact that, with such knowledge as he has, he 
can direct his effort, is all that is germain to the 
question of self-control or freedom. With the 
changes which are continually taking place, he is, 
as before observed, at every instant, actually act- 
ing with an aggregate of knowledge, and upon 
an aggregate of conditions, which are the crea- 
tion of the instant — combinations which, as 
entireties, have had no past. 

As it is the sensuous, knowing, and active being, 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 207 

and not the states, conditions, or characteristics, 
that wills, so it is the heing that is free in willing. 
Want, to which the susceptibility to feeling is a 
prerequisite, is a necessary condition to the 
being's effort ; for without it there would be no 
occasion, need, or use, for effort, and, as the sub- 
ject of the mind's knowledge of what will 
gratify its want, it is essential to such knowledge. 

A perception or knowledge of some object of 
effort, and of some mode of attaining it, is also 
a prerequisite of effort. All the distinguishing 
characteristics of intelligent active being are 
thus involved, as essential elements of its free 
effort ; and want and knowledge, instead of hin- 
dering or militating against freedom of effort in 
the being to whom they pertain, are, in fact, 
the very things which make such freedom 
possible. 

The illusion, that the relation of want and 
knowledge to effort indicates necessity, seems to 
arise from attributing the determination or con- 
trol of the volition itself, or the determination of 
the being to the volition, to some attributes or 
conditions of the being, and then reasoning either 
as though these attributes were powers extrinsic 
to the being, or as if the being's own control of 
its efforts were incompatible with its freedom in 
making them. It is not any one of these attri- 
butes or states of being, nor any combination of 
them, but the conative intelligent being of which 



208 ON CAUSATION AND 

they are states or attributes, and of which they 
are the distinguishing characteristics, which feels, 
knows, and acts. 

We know the being only by the characteristics 
which distinguish it from other existences, as we 
know matter only by its properties ; and to at- 
tribute the action of the intelligent being to 
its susceptibility to feeling, or its capacity for 
knowledge, or even to its faculty of ejffort, is 
analogous to asserting that it is the mobility, 
extension, and impenetrability of matter, and not 
matter itself, that moves. 

29. Whatever theory we adopt as to the 
substratum of matter or of spirit, it is still the 
matter that moves and the spirit that acts. 
If there be no substratum, then matter is only 
a combination of its sensible properties, and 
mind a like combination of feeling, knowledge, 
and will. If the hypothesis of no substratum be 
admitted, it must also be admitted that it is this 
combination of sensible properties that moves, 
and this combination of the attributes of spirit 
that makes effort. If we adopt my view, that 
matter, with all extrinsic phenomena, merely 
indicates that large class of our sensations which 
we find we cannot change at will,* then it is a 
certain change in these sensations which consti- 
tutes its motion ; or if, as you say, matter is only 
a "permanent possibility of sensation," then 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Chapter II. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 209 

motion must be a perception of some change in 
this permanent possibility. 

As the combinations are things distinguished 
from the individual elements of which they are 
composed, at least by relations of the elements 
which do not pertain to any of them separately, 
we may denote the different combination of 
characteristics by distinguishing names; and if^ 
in the ultimate division into only two classes, we 
call one of them matter, and the other spirit, no 
logical or practical difl&culty arises from the 
hypothesis that matter and spiritual being are 
merely combinations of these respective proper- 
ties and attributes, by which alone we know 
them, without any separate substratum of exist- 
ence. This combination of spiritual attributes;, 
without any substratum, would still combine all 
the essential elements for self-action by effort, 
and for the direction of the effort. Indeed, my 
argument, asserting that the sway or control of 
the will, which is imputed to the influence of the 
characteristics, is really the influence of the being 
characterized, would be strongest upon the hy- 
pothesis that these characteristics or attributes in 
fact constitute the being, without any substratum 
whatever. If we suppose a substratum which is 
not itself a characteristic, or even a substratum 
whose only characteristic or property is that of 
a nucleus in which the attributes of being may 
inhere ; which enters into no influential relations 
14 



210 ON CAUSATION AND 

with the inhering attributes, the case would not 
be materially altered ; and if this substratum is 
itself a characteristic, then the being is still 
wholly made up of its characteristics, and exists 
as it is only as a combination of its characteris- 
tics : thus, upon either hypothesis, equally sus- 
taining and supporting my position, that the 
determination of a volition by the character is, 
in fact, the determination by the willing being. 
Is it conceivable that a substratum can be any- 
thing more than a characteristic, which pertains in 
many individuals otherwise distinguished from 
each other ? However this may be, it is evident 
that we know nothing of such substratum, and 
can only reason upon the properties which we 
do know ; and no argument can go back of that 
which rests on those properties. 

In some respects, Extension, in its relation to 
matter, seems most nearly to fulfil the conditions 
of our notions of a substratum. It is that which 
universally and inevitably remains when all its oth- 
er properties — we might perhaps say when all ii^ 
properties — are annihilated. But the void space 
— the extended vacuum — cannot be the essence 
of matter,nor, except by contrast with its negation, 
aid us to any conception of what it is in itself 

30. It is in the distinction that knowledge is 
not an active power that wills or that controls the 
will, but only a passive possession or attribute 
of a conative being, by which it directs its power 



FREEDOM IN WrLLING. 211 

in effort, and in a similar distinction touching 
the other elements of character, that my views 
diverge from yours, yours leading to the conclu- 
sion that our efforts are links in a uniform chain 
of events, each of which is successively deter- 
mined to be as it is by some causative power in 
those which precede it, and mine to the very 
different result, that only the circumstances, 
intrinsic and extrinsic, under or upon, or in 
view of which, the being acts are thus deter- 
mined by prior causes (including its own prior 
action), but that the being, with its knowledge 
and characteristics, in view of the circumstances 
including its own preconception of the effect, 
must, of itself, make and determine its own 
effort, without being first acted upon by any 
extrinsic power or force, and hence, that such 
being, in virtue of its knowledge and inherent 
activity, is* an independent, self-active power in 
the universe, freely putting forth its own isolated 
power to co-operate with or to counteract any or 
all other powers, and thus to vary the combined 
effects of all causes extrinsic to himself, and of 
himself, without the prior action of any extrinsic 
compelling power upon him, beginning and 
directing his efforts to create the future, and 
make it different from what, but for his individ- 
ual effort, it would have been. And this result, 
that every being that wills is of itself, in virtue 
of its inherent characteristics, an independent 



212 ON CAUSATION AND 

power — a Creative First Cause — in its sphere, 
however limited, as individually and as freely 
doing its part to create the future as superior 
intelligences in their larger sphere, or as God in 
the infinite, I deem in itself and in its conse- 
quences the most important involved in the 
discussion* In this view, every intelligent 

* In speaking of "moral antecedents" and "outward circum- 
stances " in the passage I have quoted at page 165, I supposed you 
intended to include all the prerequisite conditions to volition. In 
the same sentence, you speak of the former as " internal." This 
gave me the impression that you also classified all the elements 
either as "internal" or "outward." In such classification it 
seemed to me so clear that our knowledge must be classed with the 
internal, that I regarded your omission to include it in the enumer- 
ation of them as unintentional. But in the following passage you 
distinctly assert that our knowledge is external, and place it, in this 
respect, in direct antithesis to our desires and aversions. " When 
we think of ourselves hypothetically as having acted otherwise than 
we did, we always suppose a difference in the antecedents ; we pic- 
ture ourselves as having known something that we did not know, 
or not known something that we did know, which is a difference in 
the external motives ; or as having desired something, or disliked 
something, more or less than we did; which is a difference in the 
internal motives" (Review of Sir William Hamilton, Chapter 
XXVI.) The Italics are mine. Though I had read this passage, 
I did not observe that it thus classed our knowledge till after I had 
concluded the whole argument. The question wliether our knowl- 
edge is, in fact, internal or external to us, seems to me so far 
ultimate as to admit of no argument. Each one must determine it 
for himself, as eacli one must determine for himself what is sweet 
and what bitter. However little reason your general accuracy leaves 
for such assumption, I cannot but think that in this case you have 
inadvertently applied expressions to our knowledge, when you had 
the objects of knowledge in mind, and that these happened to be 
external and not internal phenomena. Be this as it may, it seems 
useless to offer any proof upon this fundamental point, and I there- 
fore leave my argument as it is, interpolating this explanation here, 
and remarking that the same point arises in the reasoning upon pre- 
science which follows. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 213 

being, in its own sphere of knowledge, is ele- 
vated to the position of an independent sover- 
eign power in the universe, with all its prerog- 
atives and duties, all its powers, and all its 
responsibilities. 

31. The argument from the " possibility of 
prediction " remains to be considered. In reply- 
ing to the reasoning of Edwards upon the fore- 
knowledge of God, I sought to meet him upon 
his own ground, and show that if there was any 
necessary incompatibility of Divine prescience 
with man's freedom in willing, he had, of these 
two alternatives, elected not to foreknow our 
volitions, and th-at the position taken by Edwards 
that such foreknowledge is essential to the Su- 
preme governing power is not tenable. In op- 
position to his views, I then urged that a Being 
of infinite wisdom does not require time to pre- 
pare in advance for what may arise, but can per- 
ceive at the instant what action is best; and 
further, that, if this preparation were necessary, 
such a Being could anticipate every possible com- 
bination of conditions, and determine in advance 
what his action in each should be. I then re- 
served the question as to whether a free volition 
could not be foretold as well as one not free, and 
also as to God's power, or the power of any in- 
telligent being, to influence a future free voli- 
tion, thus making it more or less certain that 
it would take place, and of course subject to 



214 ON CAUSATION AND 

be foreknown with a corresponding degree of 
certainty. 

I propose now to include these questions in 
the discussion. The phrase " possibility of predic- 
tion," of itself might be taken to mean that the 
prediction of a future event may possibly turn out 
to be true, or, that things might possibly be so 
constituted that future events could be predict- 
ed ; for instance, a being with power to produce 
a future event could predict such event, provided 
he decided to exert his power to produce it. If 
he never exerted such power, this ability to pre- 
dict would never actually exist ; but as he could 
exert it, such ability would still, to him, be possi- 
ble. I, however, understand you to mean that, 
as things now are, the elements essential to such 
prediction exist, and that it is, therefore, always 
within the bounds of possibility. I have already 
urged that our voluntary actions, at least in most 
cases, are predicated upon our prophetic anticipa- 
tions, expectations, or conjectures of what other 
causative agents will do, or tend to do, including 
the action of other intelligent beings by Will. This 
involves the necessity of prescience more or less 
reaching and reliable, as a prerequisite of such 
voluntary actions. So far, then, we agree that 
we have sufficient confidence in our predictions 
or expectations of the future volitions of others 
to make them the foundation of action, and I 
hope to show that this, or even any degree of 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 215 

certainty in such predictions, is consistent with 
the hypothesis of freedom in wilHng. If I un- 
derstand your argument, it is that the possibihty 
of predicting a vohtion proves that volition is 
subject to the same law of uniformity of cause 
and effect as phj'sical events, which are com- 
pelled by their causes, and hence not free. Ad- 
mitting this, how does it conflict with my posi- 
tion that the volition or effort is itself the causal 
action of an intelligent being. The " law of cause 
and effect," at best, only asserts that the effect of 
the action of its cause is necessitated, not that 
the causal action is constrained. Or if any one in- 
sists that volition or effort is not merely the ac- 
tion of cause, but is itself an effect of such action, 
then, in reference to the freedom of the being in 
which it is manifested, the question still arises, 
does this being, as a cause, control its own voli- 
tion ? The analogy to the action of any mechani- 
cal causes and their effects might indicate that 
the volition itself, as a distinct entity, or a mere 
effect, is not free, but not that the action of its 
cause is not free, and merely carries us back to 
the questions as to whether the intelligent being 
is the cause of its own volitions, and is a cause 
which can act without being first acted upon and 
determined in its action or volition by some ex- 
trinsic power or cause. These questions I have 
already considered. In regard to material phe- 
nomena, we count upon their uniformity, in most 



216 ON CAUSATION AND 

cases, with great confidence. If we see two solid 
bodies approaching each other from opposite di- 
rections, we know that some change must take 
place when they meet. This is a necessity which 
might be anticipated without experience ; for with- 
out it we should know that both cannot occupy 
the same space ; that two extensions cannot be 
one extension ; that two cannot be one. If every 
material phenomenon were individually of this 
character, we could predict it from its antece- 
dents without any knowledge of actual occur- 
rences of the same kind. But however true the 
general proposition that, in the case stated, some 
change must take place, the necessity does not, 
even in it, apply to any particular change em- 
braced in the phrase " some chanore." 

Experience teaches us that one or both the 
bodies are uniformly arrested in their course ; but 
there is no reason to suppose that this is from an 
absolute necessity. It is not a result which we 
could have reached a priori, for it is quite con- 
ceivable that the effect of the collision might 
imiformly be, that the particles of each would 
spread and pass through among those of the 
other, each resuming its original form and mo- 
tion on the opposite side ; or that each should 
revolve around the other, and so continue, as 
some twin stars do, or each resume its original 
track when it reached it ; or that greater or less 
portions, or all of one or both might be scattered 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 217 

in any of the infinite number of directions in 
space. 

If these various modes are in themselves equal- 
ly conceivable and possible, then, admitting that 
some change must of necessity occur, we still 
want some directing power to determine among 
these possible changes, and by its own unvaried 
action produce the observed uniformity. The 
actual uniformity, in such cases, of itself indicates 
either that the particular uniform result must be 
attributed to blind force, which, acting of neces- 
sity, cannot vary its action or its consequences ; 
or to an intelligent percipient power acting either 
with design to produce such uniformity, or for 
the reason that it deems such particular action 
in itself always better than any other, or than 
inaction.* 

In seeking to look into the future, we do not 
usually even attempt to determine the primary 
cause of the order of succession. It is not, then, 
from any perceived inherent necessity in the 

* The argument for design derives no preponderance from the 
uniform repetition of any one set of events, however often they may 
occur in the same order. That the sun rises every morning no more 
proves design as against the hypothesis of blind mechanical force or 
movement than its first rising did, for each successive rising may be 
attributed to such force or movement as well as the first. Such pre- 
ponderance is only acquired when the design is manifested in vari- 
ous cases, not in themselves connected with each other, indicating an 
agency of more extended presence, both in time and space, than the 
blind forces, acting only on the occasion of the moment, and at the 
particular points of pressure or collision, in which these only can act, 
without reference to future or to distant events. 



218 ON CAUSATION AND 

case, but from the uniformity of our experience, 
that we anticipate that one or both of the soHd 
bodies moving directly towards each other will 
be arrested in its course ; and the same in other 
like cases of material phenomena. The cause 
of this uniformity is not essential to our fore- 
knowledge and prediction of the event ; nor do 
we usually seek the cause for this object. 

If, as I have contended,* this uniformity of the 
changes in matter is not from an inherent neces- 
sity, but results from the uniform mode of the 
acting of an Intelligent Being upon it, then the 
problem of the prediction of these changes be- 
comes the same in kind as that of predicting the 
sequences of the volitions or efforts of other in- 
telligent beings. 

If the Being, whose power is thus manifested 
in the material phenomena of the universe, is in 
fact Omniscient, then his action is not liable to 
be varied by any change in his knowledge. He 
will have no occasion to try experiments, or to 
adopt any other than those best modes of action 
which he knows in the first as well as in subse- 
quent cases. 

Freely conforming his action to his perfect 
knowledge of the circumstances, and what they 
require, — i e., himself so conforming, — his action 
is always the most wise. If some other being 

* Freedom of Miad in Willing, Book I. Chap. XII. and Book II. 
Chap. XII. and XIII. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 219 

with less knowledge, or some force with no 
knowledge at all, controlled his action, there 
would be no reason to presume that it would be 
uniformly consistent with perfect wisdom, and 
this ground of prediction is availing only in case 
the actor controls his own act of will, /. e., acts 
freely. We have here, then, two means of pre- 
dicting the action of an omniscient being. 1. If 
we know in advance what action will be most 
wise, we can foreknow that this will be his action, 
and, without any experience, predict it. 2. If we 
do not know in advance what action will be most 
wise, then our observation in a single case re- 
veals it to us, and we can thence predict what 
this action will be in all like cases. This con- 
formity of action to the knowledge of an omnis- 
cient being, in whom knowledge admits of no 
change, and action of no deviation from the 
wisest mode, by necessary consequence, produces 
the most perfect uniformity, and as this uniform- 
ity is a consequence only of the self-controlled 
or free volition and corresponding action of such 
a being, and would not be a necessary result of 
its unfree volitions, or of volitions controlled by 
some less perfect extrinsic intelligence, the uni- 
formity in the volitions or actions of such being, 
and the consequent possibility of predicting them, 
argues freedom, and not necessity. 

In regard to the first of these two means of 
foreknowing the action of omniscience, it is obvi- 



220 ON CAUSATION AND 

ous that there may be cases in which two or 
more modes are equally wise ; and I have sug- 
gested that there may also be other cases in 
which the advantages of variety may more than 
compensate for a departure from that mode, 
which, in itself, is best, and further, that such 
might more especially, or more frequently, be 
the case, but that uniformity in the action of the 
Infinite is essential to free agency in finite being ; 
and hence, from this uniformity, which, in the 
form of the doctrine that the same causes of ne- 
cessity produce the same effects, has been much 
relied upon, to prove necessity I have drawn an 
argument from final causes in favor of the exist- 
ence of the free agency, for which such provision 
is thus made * 

Both these means rest upon the assumption 
that the Being is in fact omniscient, and that he 
wills freely, the first more especially on the 
premise that such a Being will always do what 
is most wise, while the second is founded on the 
immutability of that knowledge which admits of 
no addition or diminution. As bearing upon this 
I have suggested that God, even if he could fore- 
know the volitions of finite conative beings, may 
have chosen to limit his own knowledge, and not 
to foreknow them ; and hence, such volitions as 
they actually occur, may become additions to his 
knowledge, and the occasions of corresponding 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, pp. 131 and 379. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 221 

variations in his action. I have, however, also 
endeavored to show that all these variations may 
still be embraced in general rules of action in a 
more extended and complex uniformity,* and 
that our efforts to ascertain the laws of nature, 
by which we are enabled to predict the recur- 
rence of physical events, are only efforts to learn 
the uniform modes of God's action in reference 
to them. Even though there is a sphere in 
which his actions may be varied by that of 
other free agents, still there is a large material 
domain, in which he may act as a sole first cause, 
and in which his action is not liable to be varied 
by increase of knowledge. For predicting the voli- 
tions of finite intelligences, we can neither count 
in advance upon their being perfectly wise, nor 
upon invariability in their knowledge, and hence 
difficulties in predicting the volitions of such 
which do not pertain to the Infinite. Their 
knowledge being always liable to change, the 
action in conformity to it may also change when 
all other conditions are the same ; and hence no 
uniformity with these other conditions can be re- 
lied upon. At the lower end of the scale of conate 
intelligence there may be beings with so little 
ability to add to that innate knowledge, which is 
the basis of their instinctive action, that there is 
little chance of its varying ; and in these we may 
count with great, yet not with entire, certainty 

* Freedom of Mind in WiUing, Book II. Chap. XI. 



222 ON CAUSATION AND 

upon the uniformity of their efforts, for though 
the change of knowledge in such may be both 
slow and infrequent, so long as the little sphere 
of what they know is bounded by what they do 
not know, the extension of it is possible. To some 
extent, then, the difficulty of predicting the voli- 
tion of a being increases with the ability of that 
being to acquire knowledge. 

It may also increase with this actual deficiency 
in wisdom ; and it not unfrequently happens, 
when new conditions require new plans by the actor, 
that the greater his ignorance, the greater the 
difficulty of predicting what he will do. Any 
superior knowledge as to what is most wise does 
not help one to predict what the unwise will do. 
So far, then, as relates to knowledge alone, as an 
element of prediction, there is no reason to sup- 
pose that Omniscience can foreknow the volitions 
of finite beings more certainly than beings of 
finite knowledge can, and it seems, at least in 
some respects, true that the greater the differ- 
ence between two beings, the greater will be the 
difficulty of either predicting the course of the 
other. 

In regard to many future events, we may have 
the power directly to bring them to pass, and 
hence may be able to predict them ; but if I 
succeeded in showing that a volition in one be- 
ing directly produced by another, involves a con- 
tradiction in idea, and is impossible in fact, then 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 223 

even Omniscience could not thus foreknow a vo- 
lition. Our power indirectly to influence the 
volitions of others, I will consider hereafter. 

32. There are many cases in which one be- 
ing, acting as a sole cause on the existing condi- 
tions, without interference from other conative 
being, can predict the events which he has the 
power to produce ; but this can never occur in 
regard to the volition of another, for the action 
of this other is necessarily involved in the prem- 
ises, as otherwise no such volition could even be 
conceived of, much less predicted, and the case 
does not admit of the action of a sole cause. The 
nearest conceivable approach to it is that of one 
cause producing the action of the other cause ; 
and this in the case of volition, it has been 
shown, can only be done through change in the 
knowledge of this other, which again is effective 
only through his freely conforming his action to 
his changed knowledge. 

I introduce these considerations to bring into 
view some of the difficulties which are peculiar 
to the prediction of a volition, and am aware I 
do not thus meet your argument, which rests not 
on any degree of ease or difficulty in actually 
predicting, but on the " possibility of prediction ; " 
and I admit that an argument founded on an as- 
certained possibility of evolving the knowledge 
of a future volition from what is known in the 
present, or even on what now exists, or is known 



224 ON CAUSATION AND 

to have existed, would be as availing as if found- 
ed on actual predictions ever so easily and uni- 
versally made. 

In any plane triangle, two sides and their in- 
cluded angle being given, the third side is thereby 
determined, and may be known without a resort 
to its actual measurement. It, in fact, is of ne- 
cessity made to be one certain length, and no 
other, whether we are able to ascertain that 
length from the data or not. The diameter of a 
circle determines the length of the circumfer- 
ence, and it is not the less thereby determined, 
and made to be exactly what it is, because no one 
can actually tell or express in terms the exact 
length ; the actual controlling dependence of 
the one upon the other is not changed by this 
incidental practical difficulty. 

No human beingr mio-ht be able to tell on what 
spot a ball, thrown from the hand upon a tract 
covered with small hillocks, would eventually 
rest; but still the force and direction of the 
throw, and the shape and nature of the surface 
over which it subsequently passes, do determine 
it, of necessity, to one particular spot, and to no 
other, and thus in some sense involve the possi- 
bility of the foreknowledge of that spot, though 
we may be unable actually to work out the 
problem. 

I understand your ground to be that predic- 
tion of volition is possible, and that this, even 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 225 

without actual experience of the fact, proves that 
a future volition is dependent upon something 
now or previously existing as its cause, and that, 
as the same cause produces the same effect, the 
effect of this pre-existing cause must be one cer- 
tain future volition, which being probably this,. 
and no other, the necessary effect or conse- 
quence of the action of this cause must exclude 
subsequent freedom in the willing being. 

I say " without actual experience," because I 
think, upon your own statements, as well as in 
point of fact, the exceptions to our actual ability 
to predict the volition of another are so numer- 
ous, — I might, perhaps, say the cases in which we 
can do it are comparatively so few, — that expe- 
rience does not prove that such prediction is al- 
ways " possible." 

The argument in this view seems to be open 
to the objection that the necessary dependence 
of the volition upon its antecedents is assumed 
to prove the " possibility of prediction," and then 
the " possibility of prediction " is taken to prove 
the necessary dependence upon which its own 
proof rested. Though the positions I have as- 
serted make it, at least in most cases, essential 
to the proper design and efficacy of our own 
efforts, that in determining them we should have 
preconceptions of the future volitions of some 
others acting in the same sphere, and effecting 
changes in the same conditions upon which we 
15 



226 ON CAUSATION AND 

are about to act, and which will be simultaneous 
with our own contemplated effects, and in many 
cases also of those still subsequent volitions of 
others which are relied upon to extend or other- 
wise vary the sequences of our own action, I 
have not held that these preconceptions or pro- 
phetic anticipations of these volitions, or of the 
sequences of them, are, or can be, infallible. If 
they were, and all changes in matter are the re- 
sult of intelligent efforts, — infinite or finite, — 
we should only have to add certain knowledge 
of the relation of our own efforts to that of these 
others to make us capable of acting with perfect 
wisdom. The fact, I think, is, that we oftener err 
in our own efforts from being mistaken as to 
what others will do, than from any other or all 
other causes. I think you will agree with me 
that experience does not warrant any certain re- 
liance upon such anticipations of the volitions of 
others. I understand you to assign as a reason 
for this our imperfect knowledge of the antece- 
dents, and virtually to assert that we can attain 
certainty in the prediction of volitions " when we 
have sufficient knowledge of the circumstances." 
This may be true if we know all the antecedents 
up to the moment of volition, including the deter- 
mination of the willing being as to what effect 
he will seek to produce, and by what effort he 
will try to produce it : * that, at this point, we can 

* For the proof that such final decision is not itself the volition, 
see Freedom of Mind, &c., p. 60. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 227 

always predict the volition, is because the voli- 
tion must or does always conform to the deter- 
mination, i. e., if the being has itself determined, 
because the being has itself determined its 
own volition. Such prediction is really founded 
upon and proves the freedom of the agent in 
willing, and of course furnishes no ground 
for inferring a want of freedom, but the con- 
trary. 

33. Those who use this argument from' the 
" possibility of prediction " cannot intend to assert 
that the future volition as an isolated fact, which 
as yet is not, can be directly known, as a present 
existing thing, which already is, and which may 
have always existed, and had no antecedents, 
may be. No such prescience is experimentally 
known to us, and perhaps none is conceivable ; 
and if a future volition could be thus known, this 
fact would ignore its necessary connection with 
its antecedents, which is inferred from the possi- 
bility of prediction, and urged as proof of the 
necessity of the predicted volition ; and besides, 
such foreknowledge would obviously apply to 
one event as well as another — to a free volition, 
or even to a volition springing into existence of 
itself, without any connection with any antece- 
dent, or with any being, power, or force what- 
ever, as well as to a volition necessitated by its 
connection with its antecedents. No such con- 
nection could be necessary to such prescience. 



228 ON CAUSATION AND 

and no such could therefore be inferred from it, 
or even from the prediction which, if possible, 
would prove the existence of such prescience. 
In such case the prescience would obviously have 
no other relation to the future volition than that 
of knowledge to the thing immediately known, 
which does not indicate how such thing came to 
be. It could not indicate whether the volition 
was, or would be, caused by the being in which 
it was manifested, or by something extrinsic to 
that being, nor even whether the volition pro- 
duced itself The argument, to avail, then, must 
assert that the " possibility of prediction " is proof 
of such an invariable connection of the future 
event, volition, with the antecedent conditions 
now present, or now known, that it may be 
presumed to be dependent upon these as its 
cause. If this connection is broken, there is no 
ground for such presumption. But the mind's 
final determination as to its effort, above alluded 
to, must be one of the links in this connection ; 
and that we can predict the act of will from 
knowing this last link connecting with it, as 
above stated, can be only because the mind, by 
this decision, does inevitably control its own voli- 
tion, and hence is free in such volition, and if, on 
the other hand, we can predict it without know- 
ing this link, then its connection with antece- 
dent causes, which was inferred from the possibil- 
ity of prediction, because such connection was 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 229 

supposed to be essential to such possibility, can 
no longer be so inferred, for the prediction is 
made without reference to it, and the argument 
for necessity, founded upon that dependence of 
the volition upon its antecedents, which was in- 
ferred from the possibility of prediction, wholly 
fails. 

It appears, then, that if the prediction is a 
direct prescience of a future volition as an iso- 
lated fact in time, it does not indicate necessity ; 
and that when it becomes possible only by its 
connection with the present, as the last link in 
this connection is the mind's own determination 
as to its effort, the fact of such possibility then, 
depends upon the mind's self-control, and favors 
freedom. In view of these positions, the argu- 
ment for necessity must recede a step, and show 
that the ddermination of the mind to a certain 
effort or volition is controlled by those antece- 
dent conditions or circumstances, the knowledge 
of which is supposed to afford the means for 
predicting the determination, and through it the 
volition — that the mind, as you and Sir William 
Hamilton seem to agree, is thus " determined to 
determine." 

There seems to me good reason for at least a 
doubt as to whether the foreknowledge of the 
future determination of an intelligent being is 
always possible — whether, as in the case of the 
plane triangle, in which only two sides, without 



230 ON CAUSATION AND 

the included angle, are given, there are not cases 
in which the data are insufficient, and from the 
nature of the case necessarily so. I have already 
remarked that in regard to Omniscience, there 
may be two or more modes of action just equally 
wise; so, in regard to finite agents, there may be 
two or more modes which to them, with their 
limited knowledge, appear in all respects to suit 
them equally well. In such cases there can be 
no connection of the final determination with any 
antecedents by which it could be foreknown, for 
there is none with which the decision or deter- 
mination is connected as a consequence, and 
even if there is usually a chain of events firmly 
linked with each other, the recurrence of these 
cases, which must be arbitrarily decided, breaks 
the chain, and a new series is begun. It is not 
essential to this result that the two or more cases 
should, in fact, be exactly equal, nor yet that the 
active agent should be absolutely unable to dis- 
cover any ground of choice between them, but 
only that, during the time he allots to the pre- 
liminary examination, he does not, in fact, dis- 
cover any such ground, and determines without 
doing so. 

34. Looking at the phenomena more gener- 
ally, and excluding those vague notions of the 
direct perception of a future event as an isolated 
fact, which, for reasons before stated, may now 
be eliminated from the argument touching free- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 231 

dom or necessity, the only mode in which any 
future event may be known is by means of its 
ascertained connection of dependence with some- 
thing which now is. The future determination 
of a being cannot be thus directly dependent 
upon things and events extrinsic to it, for as 
before observed, whenever the view of the mind 
diflPers from the existing facts, the determination 
conforms to the view, and not to the facts. 
Hence it is only as these extrinsic things and 
events affect the knowledge of the agent that 
his determination is affected, and this knowledge, 
of necessity, becomes the channel through which 
the prediction of the final determination must 
be sought. If we know the views or knowledge 
of the actor, including that of his own wants, and 
the relations of his knowledge to them, and 
know this up to the instant of determining, so 
that there can be no change, we should have the 
data essential to predict his determination. But 
is such knowledge in advance possible in the case? 
If not, then we must be deficient in an essen- 
tial element of prediction. The final determina- 
tion itself is not yet fixed by the conditions, and 
no prediction from the antecedents is yet possible. 
With this deficiency in the data the problem is 
analogous to that of knowing only two sides of 
a triangle without the included angle, in which 
case no 'amount or perfection of intelligence 
could ascertain the third side ; it is not fixed nor 



232 ON CAUSATION AND 

determined by the data, and the variety of 
lengths which will fulfil the conditions is infi- 
nite. 

That a volition is always a new power thrown 
in to break any connection there may be be- 
tween the past or present causative agencies 
and their future eflfect, and make the future dif- 
ferent from what this connection undisturbed 
would make it, and also that volition is the be- 
ginning of action, or of a new series of action, 
requiring no past, but only present conditions to 
be changed, and future object to be attained, 
both indicate that there is no such necessary 
connection of the volition with the past, nor of 
its dependence upon it, as can afford a ground 
for predicting it, or the determination of the 
mind of which it is the immediate consequence. 
The peculiar difficulty of predicting the future 
event, volition, or the determination of the mind 
to it, arises from its being dependent upon the 
knowledge of the agent, which is a variable 
element, liable to be changed in the very pro- 
cess of determining what the volition shall be. 
In the instinctive and habitual actions, as also in 
the customary or imitative, in which, following 
modes already known and with which we are 
satisfied, we do not seek any new knowledge to 
guide or determine our efibrts, prediction is most 
reliable ; but even in these cases, as already sug- 
gested, the additions to our knowledge by mere 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 233 

passive observation and perception may at any 
time, as experience shows, change our views, 
and induce a departure from the accustomed 
modes of action. 

In all other cases we seek by a preliminary 
effort to find the proper mode of acting ; i e., we 
seek more knowledge for the purpose of deter- 
mining our volition ; which is to say, that in the 
very act of determining, we change the knowl- 
edge upon which the prediction of this determi- 
nation, and of the consequent volition, is based, 
and the changes which may thus take place in 
this element, in and by the very process of 
determining, are infinite. 

The case in this aspect seems to be analogous 
to what we would witness, if, instead of the 
results which uniformly attend the collision of 
two solid bodies, a variety of effects, such as 
those before mentioned as conceivable in the 
case, with others which might be added with- 
out limit, sometimes one and sometimes others, 
should follow without any uniformity, the col- 
lision itself in each individual case determining 
the sequence, without any reference or relation 
to other like cases; under these circumstances, 
prediction of the sequence of collision would be 
impossible, the data being insuf&cient. Again, 
in these cases of rational actions — actions in 
which we devise a mode and make preliminary 
ejffort to obtain the knowledge to do it — this 



234 ON CAUSATION AND 

preliminary effort is a connecting link between 
the present conditions and our final determina- 
tion, which will depend upon the result of this 
preliminary effort or volition; and to assume 
that we can foreknow this result again begs the 
question as to prescience of the determination 
of that volition, and something more, viz., the 
result of that volition, i e., the failure or success 
of the effort for change, thus involving another 
very uncertain element. Again, what knowl- 
edge he will acquire by his own preliminary 
effort must often depend upon the results of the 
volitions of others, as it also does when one is 
passively waiting to see what others will do 
before he determines what to do himself, in both 
cases making the foreknowledge of these voli- 
tions of others and of their sequences an essen- 
tial element of the prediction of this final deter- 
mination of his own volition ; and to assert the 
possibility of such prediction, by himself or by 
others as before, assumes that a volition and its 
sequences may be foreknown. Further, to illus- 
trate the necessary deficiency of the data for 
predicting the future determination of a volition, 
suppose A seeks to foreknow the future volition 
of B. It is admitted that A will determine that 
volition, and this determination B now seeks to 
foreknow. It is also admitted that this deter- 
mination of A will conform to his own knowl- 
edge or notion of what at the time of his deter- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 235 

mining will suit him best, and it is through the 
present knowledge of A that B seeks to fore- 
know A's future determination. But A cannot 
possibly know more of the present knowledge 
of B than B himself knows, and B is yet unde- 
termined, and of course does not know what his 
own determination will be : the chain does not 
reach to the end desired. A may be more able 
to infer from all the facts what B, with his 
knowledge should determine ; but it is not the 
inference of A with his superior ability, but that 
of B with his less ability, that is to decide the 
matter. To say that A may be more able to 
infer what B's determination will be than B him- 
self is, and hence can infer or know it sooner 
than B does, begs the question, asserting that B's 
determination may be foreknown, and further, 
that it may be so foreknown before the connec- 
tion between it and the present known is com- 
pleted ■ — before B has himself determined or 
knows that upon which his determination de- 
pends. These considerations point to the con- 
clusion that the difficulties which arise from a 
volition being dependent upon our knowledge, 
which, up to the very instant of determining the 
volition, is liable to change and to be changed by 
the ver}'' process of determining, are insuperable, 
and could not be overcome by any amount or 
perfection of intelligence. But, be this as it may, 
every attempt of A to reach the determination 



236 ON CAUSATION AND 

of B by its connection with the present must 
be through the knowledge of B to which it is 
conformed, and must assume that the last step 
in the process will be the so conforming it by B ; 
and whether always this conforming by B is an 
indispensable condition or consequence of his 
acting freely, or is a result of extrinsic coer- 
cion, makes no difference to the susceptibility or 
possibility of predicting the consequent act, and, 
hence, does not touch the question of freedom or 
necessity in this act. 

35. In another view we reach a similar result. 
I have before remarked (8) that the interference 
of any causative power with our freedom in will- 
ing is in no wise affected by the uniformity of 
its action ; that it is just as perfect in the first 
instance as at any subsequent time, and would 
be just as much an interference if it varied its 
action at each recurrence. 

The coercive element of such cause, if any, 
which alone interferes with our freedom, does 
not aid us in foreknowing the coerced volition, 
and a subsequently ascertained uniformity is the 
sole ground of the prediction. Hence, converse- 
ly, the prediction can only indicate uniformity in 
this causative action, and not its interference 
with our freedom. 

The foregoing reasoning goes to prove that 
necessity is not an element in the prediction of 
a future volition, and hence that such necessity 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 237 

is not to be inferred from the " possibility of 
prediction," or even from actual prediction. I 
may perhaps go farther than this, and assert that 
freedom is an element of those anticipations, 
expectations, and conjectures of the volitions of 
others, which we more or less rely upon in deter- 
mining our own actions. 

The main peculiar difficulty in predicting a 
volition increases with the liability to change in 
the knowledge of the active agent. 

We place implicit reliance upon the uniform- 
ity of God's action ; and in the case of an inferior 
animal, with little or no ability to add to its in- 
nate knowledge, if we know its wants and its 
opportunities for gratifying them, we count with 
great certainty upon its instinctive effort. The 
difficulty lessens at either extreme of intelli- 
gence, because in these the liability to change 
of knowledge is less. 

It is greater in man than in the inferior ani- 
mals ; but much of our knowledge is derived from 
the great reservoir of absolute truth which is 
common to us all, and our wants and the conse- 
quent knowledge of what we want are more or 
less similar ; hence there is a degree of similar- 
ity in our knowledge, and in the actions which 
conform to it. There is, also, more or less persist- 
ence in the knowledge even of the most mercu- 
rial. In no one does it all change at once, and 
in most persons its mutations are very slow. 



238 ON CAUSATION AND 

There is always, then, an element of steadfast- 
ness upon which we can count in our expecta- 
tions of the volitions of others, though, being in 
its nature more or less variable, we can never 
predict the result with entire certainty. We, 
however, do, in fact, act upon these expectations, 
though with more or less uncertainty as to their 
being realized. 

I have already argued that the volition of A 
is not such an event as B may ever absolutely 
foreknow as an event which, acting as a sole 
cause in the premises, B may by his own power 
bring about ; still, any power one may have to 
influence the volition of another furnishes him 
with a ground for probable, though not for cer- 
tain prediction. This is a consequence of the 
mutual dependence of the volitions of each ac- 
tive agent upon those of others, and upon the 
changes which the others produce. I may, for 
instance, not doubt that if I make a particular 
move on the chess-board, my antagonist will 
meet it by a certain move ; and the ground of 
my faith may be that I perceive, and do not 
doubt that he also will perceive, that this is the 
only move by which he can avoid checkmate. I 
have changed the conditions to be acted upon, 
and thus indirectly changed his knowledge and 
influenced his action. 

If I inform a man who is going in a certain 
path, and cause him to believe that enemies are 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 239 

upon it, in wait to kill him, I can be pretty cer- 
tain that he will not proceed in it. I have, here, 
more directly changed his knowledge, and thus 
influenced his action. In neither of these cases, 
however, is the prediction infallible, and the 
whole ground of its probability lies in the pre- 
sumption that the person thus influenced will 
perceive, or will believe, certain things, that, so 
perceiving and believing, he will deem best to 
make a certain efibrt, and will conform his action 
to what, in his view of the changed conditions, or 
the new knowledge which I have imparted, he 
thus deems best ; i. e., as before shown, that he 
will act freely. If God can impart knowledge 
or vary our views without limit, He may thus 
present to us a sufficient reason for any specific 
action, which, being freely adopted upon our 
own perception of a reason, is a free action, and 
which, if it depended wholly upon the knowl- 
edge thus imparted, would be a free action 
which He could foreknow. Undoubtedly some 
actions, thus influenced by knowledge imparted 
either by the Infinite or by finite beings, could 
be counted upon as morally certain to take 
place ; but there is still this difficulty ; that, so 
long as we are such beings as we are, we have a 
capacity for knowing, independent of the action 
of any other being whatever, and there never 
can be any previous certainty that one will not 
thus have additions to his knowledge which will 



240 ON CAUSATION AND 

vary liis action from what the imparted knowl- 
edge alone would lead to. In view of this fact, 
men often conceal, or by some device prevent 
those whose action they would influence from 
knowing, some things which they suppose would 
incline them to a different action; but knowl- 
edge and its sources are infinite, and the finite 
mind cannot guard it at all points, or foreknow 
what may flow into the mind of another. We 
may suppose the Supreme Intelligence to thus 
shut out all adverse knowledge ; but even in this 
extreme case it would still be only the Infinite 
adopting means to influence that knowledge to 
which the finite being still of itself conforms its 
action, and in so doing acts freely. If He does 
this by changing the conditions. He succeeds only 
because the finite being freely conforms its ac- 
tion to the changed conditions. If He does it 
by changing the knowledge. He succeeds by 
changing the characteristics of the being, and 
making it a somewhat different being from what 
it was ; but such as it is, it still freely conforms 
its action to its own character — to its own 
views of what it would do, and of the manner of 
doing it. 

I may be ever so confident that the condi- 
tions to be acted upon being as they are, and 
the conative intelligence being as he is, he will 
act in one particular way, and no other. I may 
believe that a man standing on a railway track 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 241 

will make an effort to step off to avoid an ap- 
proaching train ; but the ground of my belief is 
not that the train will produce in him a volition, 
but that he will himself perceive in the condi- 
tions, or rather in the comparison of his primary 
and secondary expectations, a reason for the 
effort, and that he is/ree to make it. If he were 
not free to make it — if the effort is made or 
controlled by some extrinsic power, the fact that 
he perceives a reason for making it, would fur- 
nish no ground for supposing that he would make 
it, or that it would be made at all, and none fo]j 
predicting it. 

So, too, if we look to the internal conditions : 
knowing the man, we may know how he will 
probably be affected by certain circumstances; 
and hence, if he controls his own volitions — wills 
freely — what, under such circumstances, his 
action or volition will be ; but, if he does not 
determine his own volitions, no such inference 
can be drawn from our knowledge of his charac- 
ter, and of the circumstances in view of which 
he acts, or in connection with which the volition 
occurred. In all these cases it is because of the 
freedom of the volition that we are able to- antici- 
pate it with more or less of probability ; and in 
this prescience of free actions there is obviously 
nothing which is inconceivable or contradictory 
in thought or impossible in fact. It appears 
already that a free volition, at least in some 
16 



242 • ON CAUSATION ^ND 

cases, is in fact more susceptible, or more " possi- 
ble of prediction " than a necessitated one would 
be ; and I shall have occasion presently more gen- 
erally and broadly to assert this position. 

36. The whole argument for necessity from 
the "possibility of prediction" rests upon the 
assumption that what may certainly be predicted 
must of necessity come to pass in the future ; and 
this must be admitted ; but, admitting such pre- 
dictions in any degree of certainty whatever, 
freedom in action, as already shown, may still be 
one of the known elements upon which the pre- 
diction is founded. The problem in this view, 
under my definition of freedom, resolves itself 
into this question : Is a volition which is controlled 
by the willing agent himself less " possible of pre- 
diction " than a volition which is controlled by 
some power or force extrinsic to the willing 
agent ? Or, which comes to the same thing, is a 
volition which a being produces or controls in 
itself less " possible of prediction " than one 
which it produces or controls in another being ? 
From what has been already said, it appears, and 
is perhaps obvious in itself, that to predict the vo- 
lition which is caused or directed by an extrinsic 
power or force involves all the difficulties which 
arise in regard to predicting a volition which is 
caused and directed by the willing agent, and 
some additional ones. In both cases it is admit- 
ted that the action conforms to the views of the 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 243 

willing agent, and the extrinsic power or cause 
must act in reference to these views, and at the 
same time conform the action by which it so 
conforms them to its own views of the conditions ; 
and further, not only be able to make the effort 
to do this, but actually to accomplish it, thus 
complicating the problem of its action : this addi- 
tion to the process may obviously make prediction 
more difficult, and certainly cannot make it less so. 
In your view, the " possibility of prediction " 
must be based on the uniformity of the succes- 
sion — on the law that the same causes of neces- 
sity produce the same effects ; or on the observed 
fact that the same antecedents are always suc- 
ceeded by the same consequents. The predic- 
tion of a future volition as an isolated fact, as 
before shown, would not avail ; it is essential to 
the argument for necessity to show that the pos- 
sibility of prediction is proof that the volition 
has a connection of dependence with some ante- 
cedents which are now known. It cannot, how- 
ever, on this ground, be argued that this possi- 
bility indicates that volition is an effect of some 
extrinsic power, or cause, or antecedent, whose 
action or sequent is more uniform than that of 
the being within which it is manifested, and 
hence more easy of prediction than the volitions 
of this being ; for, under the very law which is 
thus made the ground of the prediction, volition, 
admitting it to be such a necessary or uniform 



244 ON CAUSATION AND 

effect or consequent, and not, as I hold, a begin- 
ning of action, must be just as uniform as the 
action of the power or cause which produces it ; 
and if the action of the being is any less uniform 
than that of the extrinsic powers to which it 
would thus be attributed, this fact would prove 
that it was not caused by the action of such ex- 
trinsic powers. 

It is obvious, then, that if this " possibility of 
prediction," admitted in its fullest extent, has 
any bearing whatever upon the question, it does 
not argue any want of freedom, but rather the 
contrary. 

37. In stating the proofs adduced by the ne- 
cessitarians, after mentioning " the power which 
every one has of foreseeing actions," which I 
have just considered, you say, " They test it fur- 
ther by the statistical results of the observation 
of human beings, in numbers sufficient to elimi- 
nate the influences which operate only on a few, 
and which, on a large scale, neutralize one 
another, leaving the total result about the same 
as if the volitions of the whole mass had been 
affected by such only of the determining causes 
as are common to them all. In cases of this de- 
scription, the results are as uniform, and may be 
as accurately foretold, as in any physical inquiries 
in which the effect depends upon a multiplicity 
of causes." * The uniformity of results in the 

* Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. XXVI. 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 245 

aggregate of buman actions, like that of the 
similarity of acts in individuals, grows out of the 
facts that our primary wants are similar ; that all 
derive knowledge from the same common reser- 
voir of truth; that the action of the Supreme 
Intelligence, to which each must in some degree 
adapt his action, is uniform and common to all, 
and that the aggregate of events and conditions 
brought about by the prior action of all causative 
agencies, is at each instant the same to all. With 
such causes tending to produce uniformity, we 
seem to need some element of diversity to ac- 
count for the individual variations ; and this may 
be found in the independent action of each indi- 
vidual Will, and especially when exerted in those 
cases in which there are two or more modes 
really, or to the actor apparently, just equal, 
furnishing no ground for preferring one to any 
other of them. After having shown that any 
degree of uniformity in the actions of individuals 
does not conflict with freedom, it seems hardly 
necessary to contend that a uniformity in the 
aggregate of these actions would not, and even 
though such uniformity were more perfect than 
it is asserted to be. The chances are, that the 
number of individual variations from uniformity 
will be just in proportion to the number of cases ; 
but if the number of variations on the one hand 
are taken to " neutralize " those on the other, the 
chances of the average variations in the aggre- 



246 ON CAUSATION AND 

gate will, of course, be much diminished, and 
such average uniformity of the aggregate is con- 
sistent with the greatest possible diversity in the 
individual actions. The average uniformity of 
aggregates is a uniformity of the second, or still 
higher order, and may be designated as the unij- 
formity of diversity. If there were no diversity 
of particulars, there would be no average species 
of uniformity. The laws applied to such aver- 
ages assume that there is a tendency to the 
greatest possible diversity, in the particulars of 
which the aggregates are composed. The calcu- 
lation that in shuffling and cutting a pack of 
fifty-two cards fifty-two times, the chance is that 
any one of them, e. g., the ace of spades, will 
turn up once, and only once, is founded on the 
assumption, not that there will be uniformity, or 
any tendency to it, but that the results will tend 
to spread themselves over all the possibilities, 
and be as diverse as possible. That the chance 
of each one to be turned up once in fifty-two 
trials will be realized in practice, is infinitesimally 
small J and hence no reliable prediction can be 
made in regard to any one of them, and no such 
predictions as to the average uniformity of a 
large number of human actions, has any applica- 
tion to any one particular volition. That a very 
large proportion of men, when hungry, will eat 
bread, and not hay, or that a large proportion 
of those who commit suicide will resort to drown- 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 247 

ing or poisoning, rather than to burning, is as 
readily explained by the free will as by the 
necessitarian hypothesis. 

At the moment, I am inclined to doubt whether 
the fundamental idea upon which the calculation 
is based, admits of any reasonable expectation 
that it will be experimentally confirmed. Sup- 
pose the only distinction in the cards to be that 
one half are black and the other half red. The 
rule properly assumes that the chances of black 
and red are exactly equal; and hence it is in- 
ferred that if the trials be extended to a sufficient 
number of cases, the cuts of black and red will 
become equal. But suppose one cut has been 
made resulting in black, which is thus one ahead. 
Now, the future equality of the chances of black 
and red has not been affected by this first trial ; 
and if the rule can be relied upon for this future, 
black will remain one ahead, proving that the 
rule was not reliable at the start, and if red re- 
quires this one, then on commencing with the 
second it was not reliable. In Rouge et Noir, 
the chances of black and red are just equal, but 
I am told that at Baden-Baden, black once won 
seventeen times in succession. 

38. Perhaps nothing but the volitions of 
finite free agents, varying the results of the 
action of the Infinite, and acting upon and break- 
ing up the uniformity which must obtain in the 
necessitated results of any blind mechanical 



248 . ON CAUSATION AND 

causes, can produce the variety which is the basis 
of the pecuhar uniformity found in aggregates. 
The Intelligence, thus interfering with such uni- 
formity, by acting through matter in motion, 
might construct a machine which would shuffle 
and cut cards, and vary the process in conformity 
to any preconceived design ; but in this there 
would be no room for any variation from the 
design, and it would furnish no occasion for the 
calculation of chances and of averages. Even 
such variations as might result from the wearing 
of the- parts of such a machine, would be deter- 
mined by the conditions, and be the subjects of 
calculations in which chance and averages would 
be excluded. 

If one could design a machine which should con- 
tinually vary its action, and yet in its variations be 
subject to no particular design, or rule, it might 
produce this diversity. I apprehend, however, 
that that which itself designs, and can form or 
change its designs at each step, that Intelligence, 
acting by Will, is the only conceivable contri- 
vance capable of doing this; and if its action, 
as you assert, is so subject to an inevitable law 
of cause and effect, as to be certainly calculable 
from existiTig data, though this data may not be 
always at our command, it can make no basis for 
the existence of chance, and the only foundation 
for it would thus appear to be in intelligent 
being, acting independently of this law of cause 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 249 

and eifect, and at each step capable of begin- 
ning and of varying its action independently of 
all other causative agencies. This only could 
produce that variation from uniformity in the 
particulars which makes room or occasion for the 
calculation of chances and averages, and, if so, 
then, that there is a doctrine of chances and 
averages, attests the existence of an intelligent 
power in Will, which is not controlled by the 
uniformity of " cause and effect," but acts inde- 
pendently of, and interferes with, any such uni- 
formity in other causative agencies. 

The hypothesis that every being freely deter- 
mines not only between any one act and its 
opposite, but between it and the whole circle of 
possible acts, accounts for the observed diversity 
better than that of necessity. 

I am not, however, disposed to give much 
weight to arguments drawn by either side, from 
uniformity in the results of aggregates neutral- 
ized by opposing diversities j but I think this 
much must be admitted, that for reasons analo- 
gous to those before applied to individual cases 
(and because the aggregates of action are made 
up of the particular cases of it), the average of 
the aggregate uniformity of free actions may be 
as nearly perfect as that of coerced or unfree ac- 
tions, and, hence, such uniformity or any predic- 
tion based upon it has no bearing whatever upon 
the question of freedom in willing. 



250 ON CAUSATION AND 

39. If, as I believe, the views I have now 
advanced in connection with those heretofore 
presented, make a complete map of the whole 
subject, in which there is no unexplored region, 
the question may arise, and it may be proj&table 
to inquire, why this exploration has not hereto- 
fore been successfully made. The answer, I 
think, must rest mainly in the fact that former 
explorers, with reverential feeling, perhaps I 
might say with superstitious reverence and awe, 
have shrunk from intruding upon ground which 
they have regarded as a hallowed domain con- 
secrated to the Infinite. They have, at least, 
hesitated to ascribe to humanity the attributes 
of a Creaiive First Cause — of a Cause which in 
virtue of its intelligence can perceive among the 
existing conditions a reason for acting, and a 
mode of acting to attain the object, and which of 
itself can act — can make effort in conformity to 
these perceptions without being first acted upon 
by any other power or Cause : and upon any posi- 
tion short of this. Freedom cannot logically be 
maintained. Once admit that we can act only as 
a consequence of the prior action of some other 
power or cause, and the element of freedom in 
our action is virtually excluded. The examina- 
tion not only has not advanced far enough, but 
it has also been too narrow. It has lacked scope. 
It has sought to account for the phenomena of 
human volitions only. The views I have pre- 



FREEDOM IN WILLINa. 251 

sented apply to all voluntary actions of all intel- 
ligent beings, from that which acts only instinc- 
tively, or from its innate knowledge of a mode 
of gratifying its want to that which, with limit- 
less capacity for knowing, with perfect wisdom 
devises modes of action and conforms its efforts 
to the most complicated and varying conditions. 
While some, on the one hand, may deem it too 
presumptuous to claim a freedom which in the 
sphere of our knowledge is as perfect as that of 
Omnipotence, many, on the other hand, recoil 
from the humiliation of accepting a freedom in 
which the worm and the oyster, to the extent of 
their knowledge, may participate. The element 
of fi:eedom is alike perfect in all intelligent 
being, but the sphere in which the being freely 
acts, is limited by its knowledge. It must per- 
ceive an object, and have some idea, right or 
wrong, of a mode in which, by action, it can attain 
that object. 

Among the secondary causes of the failure, 
the absence of any definition of Freedom which 
applies to the act of willing stands conspicuous. 
In my very limited reading on the subject, I have 
nowhere met with such a definition, or even any 
indication that any such existed. The popular 
idea of freedom is, that it consists in our not 
being restrained from doing what we will to do ; 
but this comes after the act of willing, and can- 
not apply to it. This deficiency has led some 



252 ON CAUSATION AND 

investigators to seek the impossible conditions 
of a freedom which at the same time may not be 
freedom, i. e., which is not restrained from being 
unfree, and which might, at the same time, be both 
free and imfree — be free to be unfree. The 
definition I have proposed, and from which as 
yet I know of no dissent, clears up this confusion. 

Another difficulty has been the confounding 
of Choice with act of Will or EiOfort, and regard- 
ing them either as identical or as modifications 
of the same element, when they are, in fact, 
entirely distinct and different. Choice belongs 
to the domain of knowledge, and not to that of 
the Will. The effort to choose is only an effort 
to obtain the knowledge of what will suit us best ; 
all effort, preliminary to acting, is to obtain 
knowledge by which to select the object, or the 
mode of action to attain it. On the false assump- 
tion that choice and volition are the same, the 
argument for necessity runs thus ; the facts we 
know, not being within our control, the knowl- 
edge of what will suit us best, or choice, is not ; 
and if our choice and our volition are the same, 
then it follows that volition is not controlled by 
us, and hence, in it, we are not free. .This sophism 
falls with the correction of the error upon which 
it is founded. 

Inquirers have also been misled by supposing 
that knowledge and other characteristics by 
which the being is distinguished, including the 



FREEDOM IN WILLING. 253 

faculty of Willing, are extrinsic powers control- 
ling his volition. I trust I have shown the fallacy 
of this position, against which it would perhaps 
be sufficient to say, that we know nothing of 
any being except its characteristics : if we elimi- 
nate these, and regard them as a distinct extrinsic 
power, there is no known being, to be free or 
otherwise. Closely allied to this, is the argument 
from motives, which are also supposed to be 
powers extrinsic to the being and controlling its 
volitions or efforts, whereas a motive is always 
but the being's knowledge — his perception or 
expectation of the future effect of his effort, and 
his desire or choice as to such future effect. 

Again, Instinct and Habit have been regarded 
as extrinsic powers controlling our actions. If 
my analysis of these traits is correct, Instinct is 
only a voluntary action, conformed by the being 
to a mode or plan the knowledge of which is 
innate, requiring no effort to devise a plan ; and 
Habit is a voluntary action in conformity to a 
mode or plan which the being has itself previously 
discovered and acted upon till it can repeat it hy 
memory without re-examination of its fitness. 
Such actions, in both cases, differ from others only 
in the fact that for them we have the knowledge 
of the mode or plan ready formed in the mind, 
enabling us to dispense with the preliminary 
effort to attain it which is requisite in rational 
actions : after the knowledge is attained, there is 



254 ON CAUSATION AND FREEDOM IN WILLINa. 

no difference in the subsequent volition based 
upon it. The difference is neither in the knowl- 
edge, nor in the volition, nor in the relation of 
the two to each other, but only in the mode in 
which the related knowledge was attained, or 
came to be in the mind. If, in each or in any 
particular case of instinctive action, we suppose 
the knowledge to be immediately imparted to the 
actor by a superior intelligence, it would still be 
but a case of the common mode by which we 
influence and change the action of another by 
changing his knowledge, and thus influence and 
change because this other freely conforms his 
action to his knowledge without reference to the 
manner in which he became possessed of it. 

In regard to prescience, it seems to have been 
overlooked that the cause with which the volition 
is supposed to be connected and controlled as the 
ground of prediction may be the being that wills 
as well as any other cause, and in this case, his 
effort, caused and controlled by himself, is free. 
If I have succeeded in showing that a volition 
which is controlled by the being itself is quite as 
easily predicted as that which is controlled by 
causal power extrinsic to it, then this argument, 
so much relied upon by philosophers and theo- 
logians, and which is so puzzling to people gen- 
erally, is thrown entirely out of the question. 

Yours very truly, 
John Stuart Mill, Esq. R G. Hazard. 



APPENDIX. 



EXISTENCE OF MATTER. 

40. I have heretofore alluded to the embarrassment 
which arises, in the question of our Freedom in Willing, 
from the hypotheses of the existence of matter as a distinct 
entity, and further from its being regarded, when in motion, 
as an independent cause. I have also confessed my inability 
to prove or disprove either of these positions, though the ar- 
gument seems to me to favor the negative in both. That you 
recognize in matter nothing but a " permanent possibility of 
sensation," indicates that, in this, so far, I am in accord with 
you. This expression for your view seems, however, to go 
farther, and to imply not only a doubt as to the existence of 
matter as an entity distinct from intelligent being, but raises 
the further doubt as to the existence of anything extrinsic to 
the being that is conscious of the varying sensations, for his 
sensation, actual or potential, cannot inhere in what is ex- 
trinsic to him, or be directly and of itself the evidence of any 
such extrinsic existence, material or spiritual. 

The idea of such extrinsic existence is only an inference 
from the changes in our sensations, growing out of our no- 
tions that every change — every eflPect — requires a cause. 
With Comte, extrude this idea of cause, and we could not, 
from any change in our sensations, infer the existence of 
anything extrinsic, nor even of any power, or anything else 
in ourselves, beyond the cognized sensations. Unless power 
be postulated, as necessary to change, we cannot predicate 

(255) 



256 APPENDIX. 

the existence of anything, except our own sensations, the 
changes in which may, in such case, spring up spontaneously, 
without any agency whatever within or without us ; for our 
own efforts in such case may be only the spontaneous change 
in our sensations, without any real activity on our part, but 
only the feeling of action. We should have no reason what- 
ever to infer the existence of anything else. No exercise of 
power, no internal effort on our part being essential to 
any of the changes of which we are conscious, we cannot 
infer the existence of any external power or force as a cause 
for such of these changes as are not attended by a conscious- 
ness of effort in ourselves, or which we believe to be beyond 
our ability to produce. If the changes in my own mind are 
but sequences of previous states, requiring no action of my 
own, or of other causative agencies, then I have no evi- 
dence that anything exists but myself, whose sensations are 
changed or intermitted ; and these changes may have been 
going on through all past eternity, and constitute the whole 
universal history, of which only so much is known as I 
remember. If we neither postulate power as essential to 
change, nor get the knowledge of it from consciousness, no 
one can infer the existence of anything outside of his own 
sentient being, with its mutable states of sensation. If each 
successive state is but a sequence of a previous state, with- 
out any intervening cause or power, then nothing but a con- 
stant succession of states and the order of their succession 
can be known ; and from these nothing can be inferred. Our 
sensations, as you say, would then be only a string of feel- 
ings. Against this I attach great weight to your suggestion, 
that, in the absence of any sensations, there is a conscious- 
ness that we have been, and may again be, the subject of 
them. It is not easy to conceive that it is the present sen- 
sation which knows itself, or that remembers that there were 
other and very different sensations in the past, and that ex- 
pects them to recur in the future ; e. g., that the sensation of 
red now existing remembers that a twinge of the gout was 



APPENDIX. 257 

felt, and expects that the sound of a bugle will be heard, 
and that this twinge was felt by itself, or that the sound will 
be heard or cognized by the fleeting auricular sensation. 
Equally difficult is it to think that this knowledge pertains to 
aqy combination of sensations, of which there may be now 
only one existing. 

We cannot divest ourselves of the idea, that knoioing all 
the various sensations with those memories and expectations 
is distinct from the variety which is known, and from any 
portion of it, and that there is something permanent that 
knows, and that this something is distinct from the fleeting 
sensations known, and has a relation common to them all. 
Admitting, then, the idea of cause as essential to any inves- 
tigation of the questions involved in the inquiry as to exter- 
nal existence, it is still conceivable that the whole substratum 
of intelligent being — of spirit — might be only a combina- 
tion of the attributes of feeling and knowing, it being impos- 
sible that the former should exist independently of the latter. 
Such a being would be a mere passive recipient of sensations 
and emotions, with no active power in itself. But as, under 
our admission, we must still further admit cause or power in 
something, it is most reasonable to conform this necessity to 
our consciousness. We are conscious, at least, of effort in 
ourselves to produce change. This is the only power or 
cause of which we are directly conscious ; and hence, ration- 
ally and logically, to the two attributes just mentioned we 
must add that of Will. Whether this combmation of the 
attributes of feeling, knowing, and willing constitutes the 
ultimate substratum of intelligent being, is a very different 
question from that as to the changing sensations alone being 
such ultimatum. That the capacity for knowledge — the 
ability to know — is an original attribute of intelligent being, 
and that the knowledge of our sensations is intuitive, no one 
will question. That the ability to produce change is inher- 
ent, is generally admitted, and I have endeavored to show 
that there is no possible way in which we ever could have 

17 



258 APPENDIX. 

acquired the knowledge that effort is the means by which 
we move our muscles ; and hence, as we now have this 
knowledge, it must be innate.* 

This combination of the attributes of feeling, knowing, and 
willing, embracing all that is essential to spirit, and it being 
impossible for us to know anything except by its properties 
or attributes, any further inquiry as to its substratum must 
be merely to ascertain whether it has other properties or 
attributes. The only other properties, of which we have 
any idea, are those which we predicate of matter ; and 
hence such inquiry would be, Has spirit extension, resist- 
ance, or color, &c. ? Is it hard or soft, rough or smooth, 
&c. ? Any one of these inquiries is, perhaps, as pertinent 
and important as any other of them. The inquiry in all of 
them virtually is, has mind a material substratum? or do 
these attributes of feeling, knowing, and willing pertain to 
some form of material substance ? To the idealist, this is to 
inquire, whether these attributes have a substratum of sensa- 
tions, or are the co-effects of whatever produces sensation ; 
and if these sensations are known only as changes in our 
feelings, then the inquiry becomes, have the spiritual attri- 
butes, by which we recognize the changing conditions of ex- 
istence, a substratum of change? But the idea of mere 
effect, or of change, is contradictory and destructive to that 
idea of permanency which is the essence of what we are 
seeking in a substratum — a something which, though it may 
be the subject of change, may be affected — still retains its 
distinctive characteristics, as wax, which, however much it 
may be moulded or impressed, still retains its property of 
being moulded and impressed, consequently, its property of 
still being thus affected, and, so far, is still wax. A feeling 
not felt by that which feels is a most complete absurdity. 
In feeling we must, at least, know our own passive existence 
as a combination of the attributes of feeling and knowing — 
mere feeling reveals nothing beyond this. It is only through 

* Freedon of Mind in Willing, Chap. XI. 



APPENDIX. 259 

the idea of cause that we reach farther. The innate knowl- 
edge that effort is the mode by which to produce change, in- 
volves the essential idea of cause, and through it we know 
ourselves as cause, or, at least, may do so as soon as, by ex- 
periment, we find that by effort in conformity to this innate 
knowledge, we really do produce or change our own sensa- 
tions. But we also find that some of our sensations occur 
or change without any effort or exercise of causative power 
by ourselves, and this leads us to attribute these to other like 
causative power not in ourselves ; and, if they exceed our 
own power, to like but superior power — to a power able to 
make the changes in our sensations which are made — of 
doing what we see is done. 

In our known sensations, and the knowledge that by effort 
we can produce or change our sensations, we have a rational 
ground for believing that there is a combination of the attri- 
butes of feeling, knowing, and willing, which constitutes our 
identity, and distinguishes us from any other forms of exist- 
ence, and that each of such combinations is distinguished 
from other like combinations, not only by the difference in 
the combination of sensations, knowledge, and efforts (which, 
admitting of a variety absolutely infiaite, probably is in no 
two alike), but by the distinct consciousness existing in each 
of its known sensations. Whether there is any common 
substratum to these combined properties, as before observed, 
is, so far as we can know, simply a question as to whether 
the combination embraces still other properties, and, if this 
were decided affirmatively, the only further question would 
be, are these other properties the same as those now recog- 
nized in matter, as resistance, extension, mobility, &c., or are 
they properties of which we have now no conception? It 
would be only a short step farther to inquire whether this 
substratum of mind is marble or metal, mist or moonshine, 
magnetism or music. Such questions, in any view, have as 
yet little practical importance. But though, from the pecu- 
liar relations of knowledge to sensation, we infer a combina- 



260 APPENDIX. 

tion of the two, we cannot, from these, further infer the ex- 
istence of matter as a cause of the sensations. We cannot 
thus know matter, for all the phenomena of sensation can be 
as fully accounted for without it. We can, in fact, produce 
many sensations in ourselves, in the absence of any external 
materiality. This is especially the case with the sensations 
of sight, by which we most readily comprehend an external 
variety. , In doing this, as, for instance, in imagining a land- 
scape, we are conscious of effort ; but we find that similar 
landscapes arise in our minds without any effort of our own. 
Having found that by our efforts we can create such sensa- 
tions or images in our minds, the natural inference would be, 
that any such which we find existing without our own effort 
are created by a like effort, but one which is not ours. If 
the creations of our own efforts preceded those which we find 
existing in our mind, without our efforts, we probably would 
thus reason. But the probability is, that the sensations which 
are independent of us exist in our consciousness before those 
which we perceive to follow as a consequence of our efforts, 
and we then have no reason, from experience or otherwise, 
to refer them to effort. The idea of cause is, in itself, a 
negation of the notion that the thing can produce itself, and, 
when this idea is attained, we must refer our sensations to 
something. In regard to some of these, we can find no rea- 
son to believe that we have ourselves created them. We 
cannot attribute their existence to their own agency, and we 
know nothing beyond. Hence, we merely substitute a repre- 
sentation of each sensation as a thing distinct from the sen- 
sation itself with which it may be associated as its cause. 
This is, perhaps, the earliest of those philosophical fictions 
or hypotheses which have been made to stand for an un- 
known cause, and which, getting firmly rooted in the mind 
before there is any competing growth, it is very diflScult 
thereafter to eradicate. Very few people, though they cor- 
rect the belief of childhood, ever come habitually to conceive 
of the sun as relatively at rest, and its apparent diurnal 



APPENDIX. 261 

motion as caused by the earth's revolution on its axis. And, 
so, from the effects of early impression and association, we 
come to regard the internal sensatians, which we do know, 
as merely images or representations of something external, 
which we do not know. Our belief that in sleep our sensa- 
tions are changed without the agency either of our own 
efforts or the presence of matter, favors the belief that such 
changes are by other intelligent agencies. Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, in " Mill versus Hamilton — The Test of Truth," 
attempts to show that the reasoning by which the idealists 
defend their position is vitiated by a " covert pefitio prin- 
cipii" tacitly assuming the existence of matter as a basis of 
the proof "that Mind and Ideas are the only existences." 
Assuming the existence of a thing to prove that it is not is 
very different from assuming its existence to prove that it 
is ; the former may, in some cases, be legitimate. I cannot 
find, however, that, as against the ideal hypothesis, he makes 
out either case. Of the argument of the idealist, he says, 
" Though the conclusion reached is, that Mind and Ideas are 
the only existences, yet the steps by which the conclusion is 
reached, take for granted that external objects have just the 
kind of independent existence which is eventually denied. 
. . . The resolution of all knowledge into ' impressions ' 
and ' ideas ' is effected by an analysis which assumes, at 
every step, an objective reality, producing the impressions, 
and the subjective reality receiving them. . . . Now, as- 
sume that object and subject do not exist. He cannot stir a 
step towards his conclusion ; nay, he cannot even state his 
conclusion, for the word ' impression ' cannot be translated 
into thought without assuming a thing impressing and a 
thing impressed." 

But if this " objective reality," this " thing impressing," • 
is only another active intelligent spirit, it still meets all the 
demands of the argument of the idealist, and is no less an 
objective reality than that which is associated with our idea 
of marble or music. Mr. Spencer further says, " Empiri- 



262 APPENDIX. 

cism ... is open to an analogous criticism on its method, 
similarly telling against the validity of its inferences. . . . 
Evidently there is tacitly assumed something beyond the 
mind by which its experiences are produced — something in 
which exist the objective relations to which the subjective 
relations correspond — an external world." The empirical 
"method," however, applies no more to the materialistic 
than to the ideal hypothesis, under which the " something 
beyond the mind, by which the experiences are produced," 
(fee, would be only other intelligent agencies. 

The question, then, really is, not as to whether there is or 
is not to each intelligence an objective reality, but whether 
this reality is material or wholly spiritual. As already sug- 
gested, if we extrude the idea of cause, there would be no 
reason to refer those sensations, which arise without any 
conscious gtgency of our own, to anything within or without 
us, for the phenomenon of a cognized sensation might arise 
of itself, as well as anything else. We cannot, then, ad- 
vance a single step in the investigation of the question on 
hand, without recognizing that every change, of necessity, re- 
quires the action of a cause. But this fact of itself gives not 
the slightest indication as to the nature of the cause, and of 
course cannot indicate whether it is material or spiritual. 
Coupled with the consciousness that some changes in our 
sensations are produced by our own mental efforts, and that 
our knowledge of the connection between our effort and these 
changes is innate, it would seem that we should refer similar 
changes, not by ourself, to a like cause which is not ourself 
— to the mental effort of another intelligent being — to a 
spiritual cause ; and in such case, the existence of matter 
becomes a gratuitous and needless assumption. 

There is still this further question : Is there any such dif- 
ference between the sensations or imagery (the landscape, for 
instance) which I create in my own mind, and the sensations 
or imagery of a landscape which I find in my mind, without 
any such effort of my own as to justify the reference of the 



APPENDIX. 263 

former to a mental effort, or active spiritual cause, and the 
latter to a passive material cause ? 

I have suggested * that the only difference between the 
phenomena, in the two cases, is that the landscape, which is 
our own creation, is subject to our will — that it can be 
changed as we choose — while that which is not our own 
creation cannot be thus changed at will, and that if, from 
any cause, our own imaginary creations should become fixed, 
and not changeable by our act of will, they would at once 
become to us external realities.* 

If I am right in asserting that this is the only subsequent 
difference in the phenomena of the two modes of sensation, 
which are distinguished in their inception, the one as associ- 
ated with our own effort, the other as not so associated, there 
seems to be no such difference in their subsequent actual ex- 
istence as will justify referring one of them to a spiritual, 
and the other to a material, cause. 

In any view which recognizes the external universe as 
created, or even moulded, by an intelligent being, a thing 
created, or the form into which a co-existing material entity 
is moulded, must have existed as a thought or conception 
of that being before he gave actual objective existence to 
such thing or form ; and, as I have before suggested, it can 
make no difference to us whether this thought or conception 
— this imagery — of the creative intelligence is transfei'red 
immediately to our minds, or mediately by first writing, pic- 
turing, carving, or moulding them in matter. Nor is it of 
any consequence to us whether our sensations are produced 
by a material or a spiritual cause. I have also remarked 
that the ideal hypothesis makes creative agency conceivable 
to us.* We can all create in our own minds imaginary 
scenes, and can, to some extent, impress these creations 
upon others. That, on the ideal hypothesis, these powers 
make up in ourselves the complement of all the powers 
which we attribute to the Supreme Intelligence, or infer 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Chap. II. 



264 APPENDIX. 

from the existence of the universe, adds to the reasons for 
adopting it. 

To most persons, the existence of matter as a distinct ob- 
jective entity, no doubt, seems to be a necessary belief. Mr. 
Spencer intimates that such necessity is a test of truth, alleg- 
ing that " the fallacious result of the test of necessity, which 
Mr. Mill instances, is due to a misapplication of the test." 
He before contends that " if a particular proposition is, by 
some, accepted as a necessary belief, but by one or more 
denied to be a necessary belief, the validity of the test of 
necessity is not thereby disproved in respect to that particu- 
lar proposition." 

But his very first statement seems conclusive against his 
position ; viz., " In alleging that a belief is said by some to 
be necessary, but by others to be not necessary, the test of 
necessity is thereby shown to be no test. Mr. Mill tacitly 
assumes that all men have powers of introspection, enabling 
them in all cases to say what consciousness testifies ; whereas 
a great proportion of men are incapable of correctly inter- 
preting consciousness in any but its simplest modes, and even 
the remainder are liable to mistake for dicta of conscious- 
ness what prove, on closer examination, not to be its dicta." 
Now, if most men are incapable of correctly interpreting 
consciousness, and the remainder are liable to be mistaken 
as to its dicta, there would seem to be no reliance upon the 
test, except in those cases in which there is no denial by 
others ; and even in these, error may subsequently be dis- 
covered, and contrariety of opinion arise, showing, as Mr. 
Spencer himself observes, " that there is a liability to error 
as to what are indissoluble connections." If it be admitted 
that the dictum of consciousness is, in itself, infallible, we 
still, on Mr. Spencer's statement, need some means of ascer- 
taining what the dictum is ; and again, if we admit that sojne 
" men have powers of introspection, enabling them, in all 
cases, to say what consciousness testifies," we still need a 
test by which to distinguish those who have these powers 



APPENDIX. 265 

from those who have not. lu the absence of any absolute 
test of this, each one would accredit those whose testimony 
coincided with his own belief. Any attempt of an idealist to 
convince a London newsboy that he was not conscious of the 
distinct existence of brick walls, as an external entity, would 
probably result in the idealist's believing that the newsboy 
was ignorant, and the newsboy being quite sure that the 
idealist was crazy. Who shall decide ? The majority would 
be with the newsboy. 

The illustrations of errors in consciousness, which Mr. 
Spencer adduces, indicate that he uses this term as co-exten- 
sive with knowledge ; and confirmatory of this, the cases in 
which he says, " an appeal to the direct verdict of conscious- 
ness is illegitimate," are cases in which we are in doubt, and 
do not know. From this, as I hold that the acquisition 
of all knowledge is a passive perception — an effortless as- 
similation—by the mind, it might seem that I ought not to 
dissent. I admit that identity in this important feature of 
passive perception is a sufiicient reason for including all we 
thus perceive under one name, and for this we have the term 
knowledge. But this passive perception seems often to be 
regarded as the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of 
the knowledge which we attribute directly to consciousness, 
when, being the characteristic of all, it can thus distinguish 
no particular portion of our knowledge. The term con- 
sciousness seems to be frequently used, and advantageously 
so used, to distinguish some mode or modes by which these 
passive perceptions were obtained, or the circumstances in 
which they had their origin, and which made their acquisition 
possible. Our cognitions may be thus classified: 1. Those 
of which we have an immediate perception without any 
preliminary effort, including those which reveal our innate 
knowledge, and also those which arise from simple observa- 
tion or experience. We see these as we see objects before 
our eyes. 2. Those in which we make effort to so arrange 
things or ideas, that the truth will become apparent, as we 



266 APPENDIX. 

remove obstacles to see what is behind them, or bring mate- 
rial objects or extensions near to each other to compare their 
relations. 3. Those in which we substitute signs (as words) 
for the things, or for the mental imagery, and then observe 
the relations among these signs. 4. Those cases in which 
we accept the facts upon the testimony of others, without 
empirical or logical proof. In all these cases, however, the 
resulting knowledge is itself a simple passive perception of 
some real or supposed truth, which may have been brought 
within the limits of our vision by effort, but the view or 
knowledge of it is still the same as if it had been in sight, 
and cognized without any preliminary effort. From the 
assertions of others, however infallible we deem them, we 
acquire no knowledge, unless we get such perc^tions of 
what they describe or assert ; and the same in the other 
cases. I have heretofore given my reasons for applying the 
term knowledge to any and all of those perceptions, of the 
verity of which the percipient has no doubt.* The cogni- 
tions included in the first of the above classes seem to me 
properly, and in accordance with the common use of the 
term, to be regarded as dicta of consciousness. We, thus, 
directly know that effort is the mode of moving our muscles ; 
we cannot account for this knowing ; we can give no reason 
for the belief; we are simply conscious of a perception of the 
fact without any knowledge of its having been preceded by 
any effort of our own, or that there has been any other cause 
of its existence in us. The term, however, as already in- 
timated, has a wider range, and we are also said to be con- 
scious of those intuitions, of which our sensations are the 
occasion. We are conscious of the pain which we feel, 
and of the sights, sounds, tastes, and odors which we expe- 
rience. It will, perhaps, be generally admitted that we are 
also conscious of such general truths as that, what is, is, 
and that a thing is equal to itself; but as to how far in this 
direction simple consciousness goes, there may be much 

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Chap- III. 



APPENDIX. 267 

diversity of opinion. Some persons perceive relations at 
once which others learn only by slow and careful ratiocina- 
tion. Truths flash upon the poet which the logician reaches 
through repeated syllogisms. 

I have heretofore pointed out that the difference between 
the second mode, in which we deal directly with the imagery 
in the mind, excluding terras, and the third mode, in which 
we use substituted terms to the exclusion of the imagery, 
constitutes the generic distinction between poetry and prose, 
and that, in the graphic delineation of the processes of the 
former mode lies the poetic art, of which the most perfect 
type is in the representation and communication of the 
thought and imagery of the mind of God in the material uni- 
verse, without intermediate signs or words ; while the most 
perfect type of the latter, or prosaic mode, is in mathemati- 
cal reasoning, and especially in the algebraic formulas, in 
which, for the time being, we know nothing but the substi- 
tuted terms, and their quantitative relations.* In geometry 
we really deal as exclusively with the terms in which the 
definitions are stated ; but this fact is obscured by the use of 
diagrams to aid our conceptions of the things defined, or 
rather the things created by the definitions, and of the rela- 
tions among them. This makes a very slight deviation from 
the purely prosaic method of terms, and in the direction of 
the poetic method of imagery. That the poetic processes 
are carried on without the use of conventional signs or 
words, makes it difficult to communicate its results to 
others. For this, the additional process of translating the 
imagery into language, is a prerequisite. The logical or 
prosaic process, being carried on, from premises to conclu- 
sion, in terms, are already in the state admitting of easy 
communication to others ; but here, in a large proportion of 
cases, before they admit of practical application, the reverse 
process of translating the term into imagery, which can be 
perceived and apprehended by the mind, is necessary. We 

* Language, p. 11, Boston edition. 



268 APPENDIX. 

may more clearly recognize this necessity in the fact that 
the perceived relations among the terms sometimes force us 
to a conclusion, which we, at the time, not only do not per- 
ceive to be true, but do not believe, and which may or may 
not stand the test of further examination in this reverse pro- 
cess. In both modes we really reason. In one directly 
with the imagery of the mind ; in the other, with the terms 
put in its stead. But from the superior quickness of the 
poetic processes, and the fact that its results are in a form 
which admit of immediate assimilation and application, these 
results are more likely to be accepted as dicta of conscious- 
ness than those of the slower abstract prosaic mode.* 

These views show that it is not without reason that the 
term consciousness is used as co-extensive with knowledge, 
all of which, in its acquisition, has the common characteris- 
tic of simple passive perception, and is not distinguishable in 
the manner of its immediate inception, but only by the dif- 
ference in the antecedent processes, by which these ultimate 
perceptions were obtained. The similarity in the processes 
two and three, and the manner in which the boundary be- 
tween one and two varies in different individuals, indicate 
the difficulty of making any general rule of division founded 
on the difference in the processes. Some persons would see 
that all the angles of a triangle must be equal to two right 
angles, as quickly, and with as little intellectual effort, as 
others would see that things which are equal to the same 
thing must be equal to one another. 

But, wherever the division be made, or if not made at all, 
it is evident that the whole effect and influence of conscious- 

* For the same reasons poetry is the nearest approach which lan- 
guage can make to reality, and the poetic power is the most impor- 
tant element in common sense and business ability. It is that which 
enables one most quickly to perceive the actual relations and signifi- 
cance of circumstances in the common affairs of life, and most read- 
ily to adapt Ms action to them. Those in whom the poetic element 
prevails may give bungling reasons for logical action, while those 
wholly prosaic will give logical reasons for bungling action. 



APPENDIX. 269 

ness upon our knowledge lies in the fundamental and com- 
mon element of simple perception, and that this, while it is 
the sole foundation of knowledge and belief to the percipient 
individual, is not proof, and as a rational argument avails 
nothing with one whose perception is different, nor even with 
one who does not himself have the same perception. Our 
perceptions are not alike ; we see things differently, with dif- 
ferent eyes, or in different aspects or circumstances, but each 
must believe in conformity to those perceptions of his own 
which constitute his whole knowledge. 

If any of these perceptions classified as those of conscious- 
ness, or not, are in themselves really tests of truth, or if any 
such perceptions of any individuals having " powers of in- 
trospection, enabling them, in all cases, to say what con- 
sciousness testifies," are to be received as infallible, we still, 
in the first case, need some means of ascertaining which of 
such perceptions constitute such test of truth ; and in the sec- 
ond, of knowing whose individual cognitions are to be ac- 
cepted as authority. That the perceptions of some men of 
clear and profound thought, and especially of such men upon 
the subjects to which they have given special attention, will 
be regarded as more reliable than those of other men, will 
be generally admitted. But this superior knowledge of a 
leading mind will be of no avail to others, until they get the 
same perceptions that he has. 

Even those most impressed with their own comparative 
ignorance will cling to the conviction that they know some- 
thing, and that what they do know they know as well as any 
body else does. Without such faith in their own perceptions, 
their knowledge, if they could be said to have any, would be 
compar£^tively useless to them. 

Mr. Spencer asserts that in Necessity we have a test of the 
authority of the dicta of consciousness. That among our 
passive perceptions we recognize various degrees of reliabil- 
ity, from the absolutely certain, to the probable, or the mere- 
ly possible, will also be admitted. The absolutely certain 



270 APPENDIX. 

propositions are those of which we not only have a clear per- 
ception, but also clearly perceive that it is impossible that 
they should be otherwise ; and if to any, it is to these that 
the test of necessity must apply. This, however, is a differ- 
ent test of necessity from that adopted by Mr. Spencer, in 
which " there remains in the inquirer the consciousness that 
certain states of his consciousness are so welded together, 
that all other links in the chain of consciousness yield before 
these give way." These " indissoluble connections," which, 
for the time being, "he is compelled to accept," may be only 
the indissoluble associations of repeated experience ; of sim- 
ple passive observation of the coincidences in time or place, 
without any perception of the impossibility of their negation 
or dissolution by other experience or by abstract reasoning. 

All mathematicians agree that numerical and mathemati- 
cal truths are necessary in the sense I have stated. We can 
perceive not only that they are true in the particular cases 
before us, but that it is impossible that there can be other 
cases in which they are not true. But, admitting that these 
perceptions of numerical and mathematical truths are dicta 
of consciousness, and that, in fact, there is this certainty of 
necessity in regard to them, it avails nothing with the man 
who does not perceive this necessity. He would be very apt 
to doubt that in all the variations of which a triangle admits, 
there can be no variation in the aggregate of its angles. And 
in the case taken by Mr. Spencer, though, in fact, thirty-five 
and nine of necessity make forty-four, the ignorant may as 
readily believe that they make forty-five. 

In some cases it is difficult to determine whether the idea 
of necessity has its origin in experience or in reasoning. 
Most persons will assert that a body cannot move one way, 
and then directly back, without stopping at the extreme point 
of its advance. This can hardly be a result of observation, 
for even if uniformly true in fact, the time of rest is gener- 
ally imperceptible. I am inclined to think that it is believed 
to be necessarily involved in the ideas as a necessity of 
thought, and that this belief has been wholly or in part gen- 



APPENDIX. 271 

erated by the terms used in describing the phenomena. "We 
begin the assertion by saying the body stops, and add, going 
in that direction. 

Be this as it may, the assertion is generally made with 
great confidence. This confidence may be somewhat shaken 
by the inquiry, how much must the body be deflected from 
its original course to make its stopping a necessity? If a 
very small change from directly forward will not, will a very 
small variation from directly back, suffice? and if so, what is 
the precise degree of deflection at which the body will actu- 
ally stop at the angular point ? If we now present the case 
of the direct collision of two bodies, perfectly hard, and mov- 
ing in opposite directions, one weighing four pounds, and the 
other only two pounds, with the suggestion that, if the small 
body stops at the moment of collision, the larger one must 
also stop, and that there would then be no power to move 
either, it will appear that the assertion as to the stopping is 
in direct conflict with other admitted facts, and, on further 
examination, may be found not to be a necessity of thought, 
but that a body may really be conceived of as moving to and 
fro with the same uniform velocity at every point, including 
the extreme points, as well as when it is moving steadily and 
directly forward. He who thought otherwise has been de- 
ceived by experience, or by the apparent or real testimony 
of consciousness ; but still, so long as he has the uncorrected 
perceptions, however acquired, his knowledge must be identi- 
cal with them. 

In further illustration of his idea of the necessity of think- 
ing " an objective existence," Mr. Spencer says of this in- 
quirer, " When grasping a fork, and putting food into his 
mouth, he is wholly unable to expel from his mind the notion 
of something which resists the force he is conscious of using ; 
and he cannot suppress the nascent thought of an indepen- 
dent existence, keeping apart his tongue and palate, and giv- 
ing him that sensation of taste which he is unable to generate 
in consciousness by his own activity." The cases here pre- 
sented are as good as any which could be selected, but I 



272 APPENDIX. 

think they do not reach the point he aims at. They do not 
show that " an objective existence " is an immediate revela- 
tion of consciousness. It is true that one cannot, by a direct 
single effort, produce the sensation of the " something which 
resists his force ; " nor can he thus directly produce " the 
sensation of taste," nor even the sensation of touch in any 
form, but the immediate antecedents, in both cases, generally 
are our own efforts, often made with design to produce the 
resulting sensations ; and hence the effects may reasonably 
be referred to these efforts. In pressing one hand against 
the other, we would refer the sensation of touch to our own 
effort ; and the difference between this and producing the 
sensation of taste is merely in the degree of directness, or 
the greater or less complexity of the series of efforts by 
which the effect is reached. 

If one, without prior effort of his own, should have the 
notion of " something which resists the force he is conscious 
of using," or should thus become suddenly conscious of the 
" sensation of taste," he would (if he recognized the neces- 
sity of cause or power for every change) attribute this change 
to some power other than himself, and with the knowledge 
that he does himself, by his own efforts, sometimes produce 
such changes, he would logically refer those changes of 
which he is conscious, and which are attended with no con- 
scious effort of his own, to like efforts not his own. 

I do not find that Mr. Spencer's arguments or illustrations 
touch the question of the existence of matter as a distinct, 
independent entity ; or that they tend to prove or elucidate 
anything beyond the point that there is "an objective exist- 
ence " of some kind, though, from the current associations 
with the terms necessarily used in the discussion, and the 
difficulty of finding language free from these associations, 
one might at first be led to think otherwise. I see no rea- 
son to suppose that he intended to do more than assert such 
" objective existence," without asserting the verity of that of 
the materialists ; and upon this point, in view of the state- 
ments I have just made, I cannot asrree with him that, in the 



APPENDIX. 273 

immediate revelations or dicta of consciousness, or in their 
relatively strong cohesions, " the inquirer discovers a war- 
rant higher than any argument can give for asserting an ob- 
jective existence," but must adhere to my previous notion 
that, as by consciousness we can only directly know our sub- 
jective sensations, our belief in an objective existence is only 
an inference, founded on our idea of the necessity of a cause 
for those changes in our sensations which occur without our 
own agency, and that it is more rational to regard this ob- 
jective cause as similar to the subjective cause which pro- 
duces similar effects than as something wholly different ; in 
other words, that, as we know that we produce changes in 
our sensations by an internal effort, we should logically im- 
pute like changes, which are not the result of efforts within 
us, to efforts without us, and, consequently, to intelligent pow- 
er, and not to material force, and that this cognition of "^ob- 
jective existence," though in the last analysis, like all our 
cognitions, an immediate perception, so far from revealing 
a " warrant higher than that which any argument caa give," 
really has its foundation and warrant in an argument which,, 
put into words, runs thus : Every change must be effected by 
some power — by some cause — this cause must either be 
ourself, or something which is not ourself; some changes 
occur of which ourself is not the cause, and, hence,, must be 
effected by a cause which is not ourself. As the existence 
of this extrinsic agency is a mere inference from the differ- 
ence in the phenomena of the change, it would be unphilo- 
sophical and irrational to infer any greater difference in the 
cause than is required by the differences in the phenomena 
or effect ; and, hence, we must suppose that these causes are 
in all respects alike, except that one is intrinsic and the other 
extrinsic, and that the changes in our sensations are, in all 
cases, caused by intelligent effort within or without us, in 
neither case requiring the existence of matter as a distinct 
entity to account for the phenomena, nor furnishing any 
proof or indication of such existence. 

18 



274 APPENDIX. 



OUR NOTION OF INFINITE SPACE. 

41. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the article referred to in 
the preceding paper,* says, " Here, then, is the flaw in Sir 
Willianr Hamilton's proposition : that space must be infinite 
or finite, are alternatives of which we are not obliged to 
regard one as necessary, seeing that we have no state of 
consciousness answering to either of these words, as applied 
to the totality of space, and therefore no exclusion of two 
antagonistic states of consciousness by one another." But the 
obvious truth of the general proposition, that everything " must 
be infinite or finite," does not depend upon our having a state 
of consciousness answering to the particular thing to which 
it is applied. We assert that all the angles of every ■plane 
triangle are equal to two right angles ; but we have no state 
of consciousness corresponding to triangles in general, or to 
every plane triangle^ and hence, if such consciousness of the 
thing to which the general proposition is applied is necessary, 
we could only assert this of the particular triangle in the 
mind's view at the time. But in demonstrating this geo- 
uietrical theorem, we perceive that we use no elements which 
do not pertain to every plane triangle, whatever its form or 
size, and hence assert its truth of every plane triangle. The 
only condition essential to the demonstration is, that the 
figure shall be bounded by three right lines. So, too, when 
we assert that a thing is infinite or finite — is or is not 
bounded — we perceive that the truth of this proposition 
does not depend upon any peculiar property whatever of the 
thing to which it is applied, but is as true of a thing with 
one property, or one combination of properties, as of a thing 
with other property, or other combination of properties ; and 
hence, whether we do or do not know or conceive of the 
properties of the particular thing to which we apply the 

* Mill versus Hamilton — The Test of Truth. 



APPENDIX. 275 

proposition is not material to our faith in its universal appli- 
cation to all things whatever. The only ground upon which 
space could be excluded from its application would be to 
assert that space, in itself, is no thing — that it is but our 
conception of nothingness ; but it has the property of, or is 
in itself, extension — the very property or conception to which 
the idea of being bounded or not bounded most palpably 
applies. 

If I see only a portion of anything, I know that it either 
is or is not bounded. A telegraph wire, of which I cannot 
see any end, I know either has or has not an end in each 
direction. It may be infinite, and every portion of it present 
the same appearance as that which I now see. It may make 
an entire circle, and thus, though finite, in a common sense 
of the word, have no end. Even in this sense, to deny one 
of the positions asserts the other, both in terms and in 
thought. In regard to space, it is asserted that, in its en- 
tirety, we can neither comprehend or conceive it as bounded, 
nor yet as not bounded. The first seems to me certain, but 
I am by no means sure that we cannot and do not conceive 
of space as boundless. That we know it must be either 
bounded or not bounded, taken in connection with our ina- 
bility to conceive of it as not bounded, seems to indicate that 
we do, in thought, regard and conceive it as boundless. 

The mental process by which we attempt to grasp the idea 
of infinite space is peculiar. We begin with the admitted 
fact that it can have no bound or limit, and yet the next 
thing we attempt is to find its bound or limit, and then, 
because we cannot find in it that which we know does not 
belong to it, and cannot possibly pertain to it, we conclude 
that we do not comprehend it. This is as if one who had 
never before seen any shot, except those made of lead, 
should, on looking at some made of silver, say these are 
pure silver shot ; I cannot find any lead in them ; therefore I 
do not comprehend them. That our conception of anything 
does not embrace in it a property or quality which does not, 



276 APPENDIX. 

or cannot, pertain to it, is so far proof that our conception 
of it is not incorrect. As the fact that one does not and 
cannot find any lead in pure silver shot, is so far evidence that 
he has a correct conception of silver shot ; so, too, that we 
do not and cannot find any limit or bound to infinite space, 
so far indicates that in this respect we properly conceive it. 
The knowledge or conception of a thing in itself is impos- 
sible to us. We can only know it by its properties of pro- 
ducing change in ourselves, and, if an outward object, the 
only way in which this can be done is through our sensations. 
The same object may have the property of effecting a variety 
of sensations, and we have not a full conception of it till we 
know all these properties, or, rather, all the effects attributed 
to them, for the properties, as distinct from the effects, like 
the things in themselves, are unknowable, and are recognized 
only by their effects upon us. When we name these prop- 
erties, we only name a cause, the existence of which is 
inferred from the effect. This object may also have the 
property of chaaging itself, or of changing other objects, 
and, may be, of being changed by them. The knowledge 
of all these elements is necessary to that full comprehension 
which is possible. 

We comprehend a thing in itself when we know all its 
component parts and properties, and all the relations of these 
parts and properties to each other. As an entirety, we com- 
prehend a circle whose radius reaches to the remotest star. 
We know that all its properties are the same as those of 
any other circle. We cannot readily divide it into, and par- 
ticularly notice each of such magnitudes as we have been 
accustomed to move over, or even to clearly apprehend by 
the eye, for to fix the attention on each of such portions 
would require centuries. These cannot all be the objects of 
real or imaginary sensations. We cannot thus make it up 
or construct a conception of it by the addition of the minor 
perceptions which our senses have supplied. But this does 
not imply that mentally we do not comprehend this vast 



APPENDIX. 277 

circle, with all its intrinsic properties and conditions. One 
must at least have a clear conception of those parts, proper- 
ties, and relations, which he can fully and accurately present, 
on a smaller scale, to the senses. Now, the idea or concep- 
tion of infinite space, in itself, is the simplest which is possible. 
Its only property by which it is related to, or distinguished 
from, anything else, is its capacity to contain extension, or 
admit other existences into itself; and for these it is equally 
essential, whether we regard it, with these other existences, 
as distinct, self-subsisting entities, or as mere ideal creations, 
or imagery of the mind. Strictly speaking, perhaps, this 
capacity of space to be a receptacle for things or for certain 
mental imagery, is rather a use than a property. Its com- 
ponent parts are perfectly homogeneous — nothing but 
space — and the relations of each portion to all the rest 
are the same, and there is nothing external to it to which 
different portions of it might have different relations. 

The idea of a periphery of a circle, considered merely as 
an isolated line, has this same homogeneity : every portion of 
it is precisely like every other equal portion, and has the same 
geometrical relation to every other portion. So, too, of the 
surface of a sphere : every portion is like every other portion 
of like dimensions, and each of such portions has the same 
relation to all the rest of the surface. But in the cases of 
the circle's periphery and the sphere's surface, we always have 
a difference in the relations of the different parts to what is 
extrinsic to them, as that one part is farther from the earth 
than another, or one part is farther to our right than another, 
which cannot occur in regard to infinite space, to which there 
is nothing without to compare. 

Intelligent being, intrinsic to space, may regard one por- 
tion of it as to his right, and another as to his left ; but change 
in his position does not change his relation to all the rest of 
space in this respect. 

If, instead of periphery and surface, we consider the en- 
closed area of the circle, and the enclosed quantity or space 



278 APPENDIX. 

in the sphere, then the portions in each vary in their intrin- 
sic relations to each other ; some are nearer the periphery or 
the surface than others, or some are nearer to the centre 
than others ; but make this sphere infinite, and this variety 
in the intrinsic relations of its parts disappears, for there is 
then no circumference, consequently no centre, but every 
point in it is as much a centre, and as much on or near the 
circumference, as any other point. 

The homogeneity of the isolated periphery of the circle, or 
of the surface of the sphere, is again attained, and the con- 
ception is not embarrassed or complicated by any difference 
in the relations of its component parts, and has the additional 
exemption from such embarrassment and complication that 
there is nothing without it with which it can have any rela- 
tions whatever. The idea of infinite space is thus simpler 
than that of a finite homogeneous sphere in which the differ- 
ent parts stand in different relations to each other, and also 
to surrounding objects. No conception of anything can be 
simpler than of that which is perfectly homogeneous in all 
its parts, and in which every part has the same relation to 
every other part, and nothing outside with which to have 
varying relations, and in which, having only one property, 
this can of course have no relations whatever, and, therefore, 
no diversity of relation to any other of its properties. In 
regard to the surface of the finite sphere, we cannot in our 
conception of it take in separately each point, and observe its 
relations to every other point, for the number of these points 
is infinite ; but knowing that each of these points has the 
same relation to every other point, we are justified, after as- 
certaining this fact, and having observed the relation of one 
point to the rest of the surface, which includes all other points, 
in saying that we comprehend this relation of every point to 
the whole surface. 

So, too, in the case of infinite space, though we cannot 
consider each of the infinity of like finite spaces, of which it 
is composed, yet, knowing that the relation of each one to 



APPENDIX. 279 

the whole is the same as that of every other, we may iu 
like manner assert that we conceive and know that every 
point or portion has the same relation to the whole which 
every other point or like portion has. It seems, then, that 
our conception of infinite space which properly extrudes the 
element of limit or bound, which does not belong to it, and 
which embi'aces a knowledge of all of its component parts, 
and of all the relations of those parts to each other, and of 
all its properties and their relations to each other, and of all 
its uses, is as full and perfect a conception as we have of 
anything whatever. 

The idea of what is thus homogeneous in all its parts, 
and in their relations to each other, which has but one prop- 
erty or use, and nothing without it to which it can have 
varying relations, is the simplest possible conception of ex- 
istence, having indeed so few elements of thought in it as, 
in the last analysis, to raise a doubt as to whether the con- 
ception is that of existence or of its absence. 

Perhaps the principal difficulty in the case is that of be- 
lieving that an idea so simple and so limited in its condi- 
tions, really fits an object which, in its vastness, is illimitable. 
Hence we seek to add to our conception of it, and find that 
in so doing we immediately come in contact with ideas that do 
not belong to it, showing that on all sides we have reached 
the limit of the conception we are exploring, and have 
already embraced iu our survey all that pertains to it. If 
extension is regarded as its property, this does not generi- 
cally distinguish it from other things ; for all have this prop- 
erty, and the consideration that this is the only real property 
of space, and that space is necessary to all material exist- 
ences, sti'engthens my previous suggestion that extension is 
the nearest approach to our notion of a substratum. Mere 
extension is unoccupied space, and is that which always re- 
mains when all the other properties of that which occupied 
it are abstracted ; but the extension, in itself, is then reduced 
to a vacuum or nonentity. 



280 APPENDIX. 

The reduction of our notion of tangible space to an idea 
of the simplest character, and eventually to a mere ex- 
tended vacuum, is not wholly an isolated fact, without 
parallel in other objects of thought. As the tangible 
quantities of an algebraic formula may sometimes be re- 
duced in the aggregate to zero, and more especially as the 
combination of such formulas in an equation, sometimes, 
when reduced to their lowest terms, results only in O = O, 
so, too, in subjecting some of our abstract ideas to that last 
analysis, in which they elude further reduction, analysis, or 
comparison, we get glimpses of relations by which they seem 
to be neutralizing each other, and in the ao;o;rea'ate resolving 
into nothingness, suggesting as a corollary the converse pos- 
sibility that from nothingness they may have been evolved, 
and brought into existence by the creative plastic power of 
an Intelligence of a higher order than that which thus by its 
action resolves them again into their original nonentity. 

If, by a fuller knovk^ledge — a clearer perception — of this 
resolving process, or otherwise, we shall ever come to be 
able to reverse it, then, in connection with the ideal philoso- 
phy, the creative power of the finite, as well as of the Infinite 
Intelligence, will no longer be veiled in a mystery which has 
thus far been impenetrable to mortal vision, and the origin 
of all existence, except that which creates, would be revealed 
to us. 

"We may, perhaps, even now anticipate, or venture the 
prediction, that the creative power of mind will be found to 
reside mainly in its poetic modes of thought, and its annihi- 
lative, mainly in its logical prosaic modes. 

This would be in harmony with the suggestions I have 
heretofore made, that the representation of the thought and 
imagery of the mind of God in the creations of the material 
universe, is the purest type we know of poetry ; that the 
province of the poet is to create, and to make his creations 
palpable and tangible to others, and that the appliance of the 
logical modes to his productions immediately reduces his 



APPENDIX. 281 

creations to mere abstractions, with a cessation or revulsion 
of all the poetic vision and emotion which they were fitted to 
produce. We may thus, by a resort to the logical modes, 
annihilate the creations of the most gifted in our own sphere 
of intelligence, or, at least, reduce them to intangible abstrac- 
tions. We may further note in this connection, that mathe- 
matics, the purest type of the logical processes which thus 
dissolve or reduce the creations of the poet, is only the 
science of quantity, of simple extension, or mere space ; 
our idea of which, involving the fewest properties and rela- 
tions, is the nearest approach to nothingness of which we 
have any conception. 

But this power of annihilating is by no means the only 
characteristic of the logical faculty. It is not creative, but 
It discovers and analyzes what already exists, and in its 
ability to reduce, to disintegrate, and to abstract, it is an im- 
portant agent in the advancement of our knowledge of what 
already is, often harmoniously cooperating with the poetic 
modes to this end. 



CONTENTS. 

LETTER I. 

1. Mr. Mill's positions and arguments. — Imply that change may 
take place without power. — If " invariability of sequence " is the 
only relation, philosophy is reduced to the observation and memory 
of the order of succession. 3-7 

2. Origin of our notion of Cause. — Sir William Hamilton's 
answer to the doctrine that we get it from our acts of Will. — His 
argument does not touch that theory ; much less does it disturb my 
positions. — The notion cannot be acquired by outward observation or 
internal experience. — Prior to this the knowledge of the mode of 
eflfort must exist, and also the "prophetic anticipation" of effect, 
which Mill, Hamilton, and Mansel agree in rejecting. — The notion 
must be innate. — This confirmed by the phenomena of instinct. — 
Not essential to our notion of Cause to know all the intermediate 
steps from its first action to its final effect. — Possible that we have 
been conscious of the intermediate effects between effort and muscu- 
lar movement . 7-15 

3. What is our notion of Cause? Ability to do something — 
power to do — to change what is to what, as yet, is not. — Not essen- 
tial to the idea to know that we can extend the effects of effort 
beyond our muscles, or beyond the moment. — This may be added by 
experience. — The notion does not reach the essence of Power or 
Cause, but still is useful in the study of phenomena, and in finding 
what has power, and under what conditions it is manifested. — Comte 

(283) 



284 CONTENTS. 

ignores causal power, but admits that it was originally predicated of 
spirit power, 15-17 

4. What is Cause? Has the notion we derive from conscious 
efforts and anticipated effects been properly superseded ? Sir WU- 
liam Hamilton, unexpectedly against me as to the origin, and as to 
the idea itself, has not found the battle-field. — His theory merely 
asserts that he cannot conceive that Cause has made something oul 
of nothing. — Cause that which produces change. — Mr. Mill speaks 
of effects which certain causes are fitted to produce. — Why is one 
thing better fitted than another to invariably precede any event? — 
Cause always the correlative to effect, and is power in successful ac- 
tion. — Our notion both of Power and Cause derived from an innate 
knowledge of effort and its anticipated effect ; but we can only know 
our ability to cause any specific effect by experiment. . . 17-21 

5. Cause implies effect, and effect implies change. — To say that 
for every effect there must be a cause, is to say that for every change 
there must be motion or activity. — If that which changes is self- 
active, we do not look beyond it for the Cause ; but otherwise we seek 
to connect it with a self-active Cause. — Intelligent being the only 
self-active Cause known to ue. — Experience leads us (properly or 
not) to regard matter in motion as a Cause, but not a self-active 
Cause. — If the motion of matter had a beginning, it must be referred 
to the action of intelligent being, and is thus rather an instrument by 
which such being extends its effects in time and space. — Uniformity 
in the action of matter, and also of spirit, enabling us to anticipate 
the future. — Our knowledge of power by effort more conclusive 
than of that by matter in motion. — Effort is itself the act of power. 
— All effort is either to gain knowledge or move our muscles. — 
Only to mind in action, and to matter in motion, we attribute Causa- 
tive power. — Matter has no power of selection. — Matter cannot 
begin change. — Matter not necessary to extend the effects of intelli- 
gent effort 21-33 

6. The effect must be simultaneous with the action of its cause. — 
Must wholly result from causes in action at the time it occurs. — 
Reasons why the notion that Cause must precede its effect has ob- 
tained 33-38 

7. Mr. Mill's views and definitions of Cause, viz., " The real cause 
is the whole of the antecedents," or the assemblage of phenomena 



CONTENTS. 285 

•which invariahly precedes the effect. — These formulas indicate a 
mode of finding what are causes, but do not define them. — They do 
not distinguish causes from mere passive conditions. — Under them 
darkness must be a Cause in the change from darkness to light. — 
That people differ as to which of the antecedents is the Cause, is no 
ground for inferring that all of them are causes. — Inexpedient to 
confound in the one word Cause the passive conditions which resist 
change with the active agency which changes them. — All the cases 
of Causation stated by Mr. Mill properly referable, either to mind in 
action or matter in motion 39-47 

8. Substitutes for our notion of Cause as derived from intelligent 
effort. — 1. Generalized Phenomena as Gravitation. — 2. The phe- 
nomena themselves fixed or flowing. — 3. Uniform succession, or 
Uniformity itself. — Under first head causal power sometimes assumed 
to be in the name, sometimes in the facts named, and sometimes at- 
tributed to a mere hypothetical power indicated by or embodied in 
them. — No Causal power in the mere names. — To predicate it of 
the generalized facts would make them collectively the cause of 
themselves individually, involving the existence of the collection 
prior to that of the individuals of which it is composed. — The hypo- 
thesis of an unknown power has its types in the ancient mythology, 
and in the rude notion of our Indian tribes. — Science has its mani- 
tous. — Mere hypothesis cannot properly supersede our innate knowl- 
edge of power by effort, or even of our empirical knowledge of power 
by matter in motion. — The ancient Divinities and the Indian Mani- 
tous were spirit causes, the manitous of science are often material, 
have these their primitive type in Fetichism ? 47-50 

9. Second substitute. — The phenomena themselves. — Mr. Mill 
regards these as more properly causes, and includes as "perman- 
ent causes" both "objects" and <' events." — Also holds that "the 
real cause is the whole antecedents." — "We agree that the law of 
uniformity applies to all unintelligent Cause. — The whole ante- 
cedents are the same at every point of space, and hence the effects 
should be the same. — The whole past being everywhere the same, 
and acting upon a void and therefore homogeneous future, the effect 
should everywhere be the same. — If the whole past, as a causal 
power, produces an effect, then this effect is added to the aggregate 
cause, and the same causes can never act again. — If it is insufficient, 



286 CONTENTS. 

and produces no effect, then, there being no change, it can, under the 
rule of uniformity, only repeat its insufficient action, and there would 
be an end of change. — Failure of effect cannot be such a new event 
as of itself to add a new element and make the insufficient Cause a 
different and sufficient Cause, unless the Cause is intelligent. — The 
"whole prior state " never can occur again, and no case of the uni- 
formity of Causation can arise. — The hypothesis that the " order 
of succession " is in separate fibres avoids some, but not all of the 
difficulties. — It also necessitates a plurality of causes from the 
origin of existence. — This violates the law of Parsimony. . 50-62 

10. Fixed existences cannot be the cause of any subsequent 
change. — If Cause in virtue of mere existence, they would change 
themselves at the instant of coming into existence, and never could 
become fixed. — The Cause cannot be completed by some new 
phenomenon. — Fixed or stable events being excluded. Cause can 
only be mind in action and matter in motion. — Permanent material 
existences cannot act in conformity to law 62-66 

11. Third substitute, first division of it. — No Causal power, &c. — 
This idea a result of physical science. — Attributing Causal power to 
observed uniformity common to every stage of empirical knowledge. 

— If no Causal power, all events would spring into existence spon- 
taneously and contingently, without order or adaptation. — Nothing 
to conform things to order by a beneficent design. — Material effects 
and their uniformity depend on some power of matter in motion. — 
There must be some power to produce the observed uniformity. — 
To meet this necessity it is asserted that the power or cause inheres 
in the uniformity itself. — But the things to be accounted for are the 
events and the uniformity of their succession. — Under this hy- 
pothesis a thing is said to succeed another because it always does so. 

— This phrase now superseding the generic names of phenomena. — 
Both traceable to uniformity, and both making the collective events 
the causes of themselves individually 66-69 

12. The ideas of Cause and of uniformity are essentially distinct 
and different. — Nor is succession a necessary element of our idea 
of Cause. — It is complete without the knowledge of its effect. — 
The succession comes after the Cause, and makes no part of it. — It 
is only the evidence that Cause has existed. — Succession is the 
effect, and to make it Cause is to make it the Cause of itself. — All 



CONTENTS. 287 

theories of Causation must bring us to something already active, or 
that has the ability to become so. — In my view, spirit Cause cannot 
be dispensed with — must always have existed. — Lapse even of in- 
finite time does not preclude our speculating on the primordial con- 
ditions of existence. — Our interest in the study of the succession of 
events not lessened by its being distinct from Causation. — Our 
knowledge of the uniformity of succession important only because 
we have 'power to act upon the future. — Except in regard to in- 
stinctive action, it is because of the uniformity in the effects of effort 
that we can know how to influence the future ; this uniformity may 
be an occult necessity, but this does not affect our freedom in mak- 
ing the effort. • • • 69-76 

APPENDIX TO LETTER I. 

Correspondence with Professor Kood on the common belief that 
the sun cannot be seen till about 8' after it is on the visible hori- 
zon 77-80 



LETTEE II. 

FREEDOM EST W^IEEINQ. 

1. Subject stated 81 

2. Definitions of Freedom and of Will restated. . .... 81 

3. Necessity. — Its various meanings. — Associated with com- 
pulsion as its antecedent, and with invariability as its consequent. — 
Free action may be as invariable as coerced action. — Only when 
Necessity implies compulsion that it is opposed to Freedom. 82-86 

4. Intelligent effort a beginning of the exercise of power, and not 
an effect of some previously exerted power. — The being that wills is 
a power, and not merely an instrument through which power is trans- 
mitted. — Inter-dependence arising from each varying the conditions 
for others, and also changing their knowledge and wants. — This 
does not interfere with their freedom. — Positions in support of 
these views stated . 86-93 



288 CONTENTS. 

5. The issue as to the control of volition by previous conditions. 

— Illustrations from matter in motion all fail at the point of effort, to 
which there is no known similitude 93-98 

6. Mr. Mill's arguments embraced under the following heads : — 

1. The argument from cause and effect, or that volition is a 

necessary effect of its antecedents. 

2. The influence of present external conditions. 

3. The influence of internal phenomena, including the char- 

acter, knowledge, habits and wants of the being that 
wills. 

4. The argument from prescience, or possibility of prediction. 
Motive is embraced in both the second and third cate- 
gories 98-99 

7. The arguments should rest upon the phenomena of voluntary 
action, some of which are here stated. — All effort is made to vary 
the future. — The agent must have a conception of what the future 
will be without his effort, and also what with his effort. — The former 
a 'primary^ the latter a secondary expectation. — Freedom not de- 
pendent on the success of the effort. — Actor considered as a sole 
agent of change, and also as acting in conjunction with other causes. 

— Universal passivity. — Difficulty of conceiving absolute com- 
mencement of action. — Note on Sir Wm. Hamilton's idea of Causa- 
tion. — The want of variety or of activity may be a ground for be- 
ginning action. — Apparent similarity of the conditions of the begin- 
ning of material movement and of mental action. — Differences in 
the actual phenomena. — Intelligence free to begin action whenever 
it perceives a reason -for it. — Hypothesis of universal passivity 
foreign to experience. — The more practical questions are. Can in- 
telligent conative being, passive among changing events, of itself 
begin action? Is his effort determined by the current of events, or 
by himself? Freedom in willing does not involve power to do 
what we will 99-111 

8. Examination of the first of the four arguments or categories. 

— The question as to the mind's ability to begin action covers the 
same ground as it. — The necessitarian argument that mind before 
it can act must be first acted upon by some causative agency in the 
past, is applied to all these categories. — Some positions bearing on 
them all. — Our knowledge of the past has no more Causative power 



CONTENTS. 289 

than that of the future. — The only conceivable modes in which 
causative powers of the past can reach the present, are by means of 
matter in motion or of intelligent action. — These really present 
active powers. — Conceivable that the past may influence present 
action of these causes by changes it has wrought in the conditions to 
be acted upon, or in the characteristics of the power that acts upon 
them. — Argument from cause and eflTect. — Object of volition is to 
interfere with and change its uniformity. — Uniformity suggests 
necessity, but in fact aids us to vary the future. — The argument 
only proves that the Will is unfree, not that the mind is. — Necessi- 
tarians enforce and illustrate this argument from cause and effect by 
the phenomena of matter in motion ; as well illustrate the phenomena 
of material motion by that of mental effort. — They resemble each 
other not in themselves, but only in this, they both produce effects. — 
Mind alone makes effort. — In its effort it has two distinct objects, 
external change, and increase of its own knowledge. — To produce 
external change, including that in the knowledge or action of others, 
we always begin by moving our own muscles. — To increase our 
knowledge we often begin and end with mental effort. — Phrases 
" muscular effort" and "mental effort" do not imply difference in the 
actor, but in the subject or object of his action. — Further analogies 
and differences between matter in motion and mind in effort. 111-124 

9. All the arguments against freedom under the first three heads 
assert or assume that to act, mind must be first acted upon. — Ex- 
perience against this. — Our ability to start from a universal pas- 
sivity at least doubtful 124-126 

10. The more practical question is, Can the individual, himself 
passive, in the midst of changing conditions, of himself begin action? 
Action, whether upon fixed or flowing conditions, based upon expec- 
tation ; and any change in this is a change in our knowledge. — 
Change from a passive to an active state attested by experience and 
observation. — Beginning of effort as marked as beginning of sensa- 
tion. — Necessitarian argument from cause and effect asserts that 
volitions do begin to be. — Same argument makes the whole destiny 
of the being depend upon the time and place at which it was di-opped 
into the current of events. — These questions ultimately rest on 
consciousness. — Its dicta cannot be urged as proof even that we 
make effort, much less as proof that effort is free or unfree. — Mr. 

19 



290 CONTENTS. 

Mill's objections to such proof by Sir Wm. Hamilton too broadly 
stated. — In willing we have a prophetic anticipation of the effect, 
and the knowledge of the mode of moving the muscles must be 
innate 126-131 

11. Does freedom require that we should be able to will the con- 
trary? The case supposed by Mr. Mill "to murder" or "not to 
murder," raises the question, not of freedom, but of character. — The 
notion that.ability to do the contrary is essential to freedom reached 
through a logical error. — Such ability would indicate the reverse of 
freedom. — What is meant by ability to will the contrary? — The 
position reducible to the absurdity that one is not free because he 
cannot be otherwise than free 131-135 

12. Returns to the question of our ability to begin action. — 
Hypothesis of action by one suddenly transferred to an unknown 
forest. — No difficulty in conceiving a beginning of action in each 
individual, nor of the beginning of each particuliar action. — In this 
misled by the analogies of material phenomena. . . . 135-138 

13. Effort of a conative intelligence requires no prior application 
of power. — It is isolated from the past. — No consequence when 
the conditions commenced, nor whether they ever had any com- 
mencement. — Experience in the supposed cases of action at the 
instant of the creation of the active being, or of the conditions, -r 
On every occasion for action there is some change, making as an 
entirety a new creation commencing at the instant. — No power in the 
quiescent phenomena, nor in our perception of them. — Advocates 
of Causative power in the past cannot object to the hypothesis of 
non-action of such causes 138-143 

14. Instinctive action the same as if all the elements were created 
at the instant. — Volition does not require that the active being, or 
the conditions, should have had a past existence. — Nor does it mat- 
ter by what power or cause the conditions are brought about. — In- 
fluence of our knowledge of past causes considered. — The whole 
past, so far as it relates to action, has culminated in this knowledge. 
— Not material to the active agent what other, or whether any other 
causes are producing change. — Power to begin action the peculiar 
attribute of conative intelligence. — Note on Sir Wm. Hamilton's 
not recognizing a power to begin action 143-148 

15. This beginning of action by the mind the thing now to be ac- 



CONTENTS. -291 

counted for. — Unfortunate use of the word Cause to designate com- 
pvlsory fower, and also the perception of future results, which is a 
reason for effort. — It is through matter in motion that we seek to 
connect change, in that which cannot change itself, with a self-active 
power. — Having done this, we look no farther for the power, but 
may still inquire how it came to exist, and under what conditions it 
exists and produces effects. — The past can only indirectly affect the 
mind's action by having changed the mind itself, or the conditions 
upon which it acts 148-153 

16. In the conditions (internal and external) you find the power 
or influence which determines the mind to determine. — This word 
influence produces confusion and underlies much fallacy. — Like 
cause, it is applied to power, and also to the perception of a reason. 
— Perception of a reason, being a form of knowledge, belongs to our 
third category, leaving us in the second to consider only the power 
of external conditions 153-154 

17. Second category, or influence of the external conditions. — 
Difficulty of conceiving of any mode in which these can act the will, 
or control the mind in its acting. — The argument must be general, 
and assert that the mere existence of conditions of any kind excludes 
freedom, and these conditions being always prerequisites of effort, 
effort is always controlled by them. — More reasonable to attribute 
volition to the active being than to the passive conditions. — Other- 
wise the power to act upon and change is attributed to the passive 
subject which is to be acted upon and changed. — That the being 
wants change in the conditions does not imply that these conditions 
have any power to change themselves mediately through his action, 
any more than that they can directly act upon and change themselves 
without his agency. — From confounding reason with cause, and the 
conditions with the perceptions of them, the conditions come to be 
regarded as the causes instead of the subjects of effort. — The con- 
ditions are necessary to effort as passive subjects, but not as the active 
agents. — External conditions do not act the will. — This would 
imply that the Will is a distinct entity to be acted upon. 154-158 

18. To suppose that volition in one mind is produced by the 
action of another, involves all the difficulties of self-originated action, 
and some others in addition. — We always seek to vary effort in 
another, indirectly, by changing his knowledge. — This we always do 



292 CONTENTS. 

by changing the external conditions ; but these conditions or clianges, 
and the mind's perception of them, are two entirely distinct and 
diflPerent things. — Causative powers in the past may have made the 
present conditions. — But the nature of these conditions, or any dif- 
ferences in them, do not effect freedom. — The conative intelligence, 
whether acting as sole cause or in connection with others, acts upon 
its expectations of the future. — It makes no difference whether the 
uniformity in material phenomena arises from the necessary action 
of blind forces, or from the free action of a supremely wise intelli- 
gence which does not vary from the wisest mode. — Argument for 
control by the conditions is founded on the assumption that the 
volition varies with, and conforms to, the conditions. — If true, con- 
trol could not be properly inferred from tliis assumption. — But 
effort is in fact conformed, not to the conditions, but to the mind's 

perception of a mode of acting upon them 158-164 

' 19. (Third Category.) Necessitarians affirm that the volitions 
must be in accordance with the " dispositions, desires, aversions, 
and habits, combined with outward circumstances." — That they 
follow " moral antecedents as certainly as physical effects follow 
their physical causes," and hence argue that they are not free. — It 
is our knowledge or view of the outward circumstances which affects 
our determinations. — The moral antecedents are merely character- 
istics which make the being what it is, and distinguish it from what 
it is not, and any influence of the character is that of the being thus 
constituted. — Character made in the past. — Doctrine of freedom 
does not assert that the mind makes the conditions (external or 
internal) , but only that in view of them it determines its own effort. 

— If he has before changed his own character, he may do it now, 
and so far change and determine the action which conforms to it. — 
The process by which we determine effort is the same as that by 
which we change our characters, and, hence, the two may be simul- 
taneous. — The instantaneous exercise of a new power breaking the 
chain of past causation is the peculiar attribute of conative intelligent 
being. — But if his character never changed, or even if changed 
every instant, and by some extrinsic power, he might still act freely. 

— To change the action of others, we seek to change either their 
knowledge or the conditions to be acted upon. — Types of these two 
modes. — But we agree that we can change our own characters. — 



CONTENTS. 293 

My positions give a broader significance to your statements on this 
point. — But to answer the Owenites requires the admission that we 
can act without being first acted upon. — Otherwise we are placed in 
a current of events in which we have no control of our destiny. — 
We do not float, but swim. — Does the current cause the swimming? 

— Relation of punishment to freedom and necessity. . 164-174 

20. The hypothesis of necessary succession involves the doctrine 
of election and reprobation. — Means of changing our own char- 
acters. — The doctrine of necessary succession also involves that of 
a multiplicity of causes in the commencement and through the 
whole series. — This applies to the formation of character. — But 
having the attributes of self-activity, it is not material to freedom 
what the other characteristics are, nor how acquired. — A demon is 
as free as an angel 174-180 

21. That the act of a virtuous person is virtuous, indicates free- 
dom; if it were vicious, this would indicate the absence of self- 
control. — The necessitarian argument is general, asserting that as 
volition must conform to the character, it is controlled by it. — This 
assumes that the character is distinct from, and extrinsic to, the 
willing being. — Even admitting this, the inference of necessity is 
not legitimate. — Conformity of acts to character indicates freedom. 

— Taking intention into account, there can be no discrepancy be- 
tween them. — Proving the necessary conformity only aflirms the 
truism that the thing is of necessity equal to and like itself, and 
that the action of the being will be a manifestation of its own char- 
acter, and not that of another. — Such conformity indicates self- 
control or freedom 180-184 

22. The influence of the particular elements of character, as dis- 
positions, habits, &c., examined in detail. — "Disposition" some- 
times means present inclination, and sometimes a fixed general 
character. — Character may change at the instant of action, and, 
hence, though action always conforms to the character at the instant, 
there is not always a general or habitual disposition to which it con- 
forms. — Dispositions, inclinations, desires, &c., but modifications 
of want. — They often suggest the objects of eflTort, from which we 
select by a preliminary examination. — This examination is always 
an efibrt to increase our knowledge, and find what, under the ex- 
isting conditions, will suit us best. — The particular inclination or 



294 CONTENTS. 

disposition of the occasion more obviously liable to be changed, in 
this process, than the general character. — The object of the ex- 
amination often is to test the expediency of such change. — Conflict- 
ing inclinations, desires, &c., among which we must choose. — Not 
till they have culminated in choice to try to do, that they are related 
to action ; and this choice, being the knowledge that one effort suits 
us better than others, is a relation of knowledge to action. — By 
knowledge the questions as to effort and non-effort, and as to what 
efforts, are decided. — That the present action is as the present in- 
clination, not only indicates freedom, but is essential to its mani- 
festation. — Necessitarians assert, that as the volition must conform 
to the disposition, &c., the willing being is controlled by this neces- 
sity, and hence not free. — This conformity to choice is the especial 
characteristic of freedom, and some logical entanglement is re- 
quired before there can be any difficulty to explain. — The argument 
asserts that freedom is not free because it is constrained to be 
free. . 184-189 

23. Term habit always applied to the general or formed character. 

— In habitual actions we adopt modes previously discovered, saving 
the labor of the preliminary examination. — Habit not a mysterious 
power compelling action, but only a name for a particular phase of 
the general relation of knowledge to action. — As well attribute such 
compulsion to " customary " or " imitative " actions. — The reasons 
against making other characteristics distinct entities controlling voli- 
tion, apply also to habit, and, in addition, habit is a product of re- 
peated action ; and, hence, such action cannot primarily be produced 
by habit. — Conformity of action to disposition, desire, &c., is but 
conformity to the being's own view, and the position of Necessitari- 
ans is here against themselves 189-192 

24. Influence of Motive. — Vicious circle. — Sir Wm. Hamilton's 
reply to Reid, suggesting that the cause of the act be called motive. 

— He seeks what is self-contradictory, a being acting freely, and yet 
not controlling its action. — Mind does not act contingently, but 
always on the perception of an inducement. — No objection to call- 
ing this inducement a motive, but important to examine this motive 
before deciding that it conflicts with freedom. — Mr. Mill caUs moral 
antecedents motives, and makes " desires and aversions " prominent. 

— These are not entities having power, but states of the mind in 



CONTENTS. 295 

which it still controls its own action. — Desire or want does not 
produce action, but is one of the passive conditions to which the 
mind adapts its action. — Motive is always the mind's expectation of 
future effect, and this is knowledge 192-196 

25. All the relations of the conditions (intrinsic and extrinsic) to 
action are now shown to be concentrated in want and knowledge, 
bringing us to Mr. Mill's statement, as quoted in " Causation " (1st 
page). That statement of my positions, in the main, I accept. — 
The invariable conformity of volition to want and knowledge, here 
admitted, does not favor necessity, nor militate against freedom. — I 
also assent to the essential facts there asserted. — Thus agreeing in 
facts so nearly ultimate, there seems little room to differ, except as 
to the name of the result. — Reasons why I call it freedom. — It 
would be a queer sort of freedom in which a man would or could do, 
or try to do, what he did ' not want to do, or try to do. — The in- 
variability in the case is only that of the being's effort to his own 
notion of the means of attaining the end — a necessity that free 
actions must be free 196-199 

26. The act must be so conformed by some cause or power. — 
The only essential elements in the case are the intelligent being with, 
his knowledge, the effort he makes, and the conditions to be changed. 
— The question as to control by the conditions has already been 
disposed of. — Effort not an entity with power or knowledge. — 
Want and knowledge cannot want or know, or direct action. — To 
suppose the conformity is produced by an extrinsic intelligence, in- 
volves all the difficulties of self-action, and others still greater. — 
Such extrinsic agent must know the views of the actor, and also 
some mode of controlling his volition. — No direct mode of doing 
this known or conceivable. — Can only be done by changing his 
knowledge, which, in the very process of conforming, changes that 
to which the act is to be conformed. — As we never attempt to make 
the act of another conform to his knowledge, this difficulty never 
practically arises. — What we do attempt is to change the knowledge 
of another, so that his conforming act will be different. — The 
hypothesis of extrinsic control still involves the necessity of intrinsic, 
which it was intended to discard. — The conformity by intrinsic 
control is consummated by the effort to do ; but by the extrinsic only 
when the effort is successful. — If these views do not prove the ex- 



296 CONTENTS. 

trinsic hypothesis impossible, they show that it would be absurd to 
adopt it in preference to the intrinsic 199-203 

27. It is the being that determines in view of its want and knowl- 
edge ; and even if want and knowledge are extrinsic to the willing 
being, they are still but extrinsic conditions of action, and not powers 
that act. — Want influential only as known, and in the last analysis 
volition depends only upon knowledge. — Knowledge induces effort 
only when it embraces some desirable change to be effected, and 
some mode of action to effect it. — No power in this prophetic knowl- 
edge to make an effort, or determine its direction. . . 203-204 

28. It cannot be the past events which conform our acts to them- 
selves, or to anything else, for when our recollection differs from 
the event, our actions are conformed to the recollections, and not to 
the events. — It may still be said that our knowledge or belief, right 
or wrong, is the product of the past. — Knowledge being a charac- 
teristic, the same reasoning which has been applied to the position 
that the character generally is formed in the past, will apply to it 
also. — It is not the past facts, nor the memory of them, but the 
ability which the being now has to direct its effort to a future result, 
that influences its action. — But the being is continually acting upon 
an aggregate of knowledge created at the instant, and which, as 
entireties, had no past. — All the distinguishing characteristics of 
intelUgent being are essential elements of its freedom. — The illusion 
seems to be in attributing control to some portion of the being, then 
reasoning as though this portion were extrinsic to it, or as though 
control by the being, of its own action, were incompatible with its 
freedom. — It is not any of these characteristics or states of the 
being, but the conative being of wMch they are characteristics or 
states, that feels, knows, and acts 204-208 

29. Not material to the question what theory we adopt as to the 
substratum of matter or of spirit. — My argument is apparently 
strongest on the hypothesis that the being is constituted of its char- 
acteristics with no substratum. — But a substratum which was only 
a nucleus, adding no other characteristics to the combination, 
would, in reality, make no difference. — If the substratum is a 
characteristic, then the being or thing is still but a combination of 
its characteristics, and exists only as such, in either case equally 
sustaining my position that control by the characteristics is control 



CONTENTS. 297 

by the being. — Can a substratum be anything more than a charac- 
teristic of many individuals otherwise distinguished from each other? 
— No argument can go back of the properties. ~ In some respects 
extension of matter most nearly conforms to our notion of a sub- 
stratum 208-210 

30. From this point of difference, as to the relations of the charac- 
teristics to the being they characterize, our views diverge, and lead to 
very different conclusions. — Note in regard to Mr. Mill's classing 
knowledge among the external motives. ...... 210-213 

31. My object when replying to Edwards. — Questions then re- 
served, and now considered. — Our actions usually predicated upon 
our anticipation of what other causative agents will do. — In this we 
agree. — Does it conflict with my position that volition is causal 
action? — Law of cause and effect at most only asserts that effects, 
not causes, are necessitated. — Or if volition is an effect, then the 
question which concerns the freedom of the heing is, does he cause 
the volition ? — The analogy of any mechanical causes and their 
effects might prove that volition, as a distinct entity or a mere effect, 
is not free, but not that its cause is not free. — We rely upon the 
uniformity of material phenomena. — When we see two solid bodies 
approaching each other, we know that some change must occur. — 
But no particular change of necessity, or which we could know a 
priori. — Various results equally conceivable and possible. — We 
still want some directing power, blind or percipient, to determine 
among these possibles. — Note on argument from design. — The 
ground of prediction is uniformity, not necessity. — Cause of the 
uniformity is not essential to foreknowledge, nor do we usually seek 
it for this object. — Uniformity in material changes may be but uni- 
formity in the action of an intelligent cause of them. — Omniscience 
not liable to vary its plan, and if It directs Its own action we have 
additional means of predicting it. — The uniformity of material 
phenomena, or of cause and effect, indicates freedom. — Our voli- 
tions may be additions to God's knowledge, and reasons for varying 
His action. — All these variations may be embraced in a more ex- 
tended uniformity. — In seeking the law of material uniformity we 
only seek the uniform modes of God's action. — A large material 
domain in which God acts as a Sole First Cause unvaried by change 
in His knowledge. — No reliable uniformity of human actions to ex- 



298 



CONTENTS. 



ternal conditions. — More reliable as the ability to acquire knowl- 
edge lessens. — Wisdom does not aid one in predicting what the un- 
wise will do. — Omniscience in this respect has no advantage. — We 
may foreknow such events as we can produce, but volition in others 
cannot be thus foreknown. 213-223 

^'■Possibility of Prediction^'' — Meaning of this Phrase. 

32. A being acting as sole cause might predict what he has power 
to produce. — But this case can never occur in regard to volition. — 
Mr. Mill's argument rests not on the degree of ease or of difficulty 
of prediction, but on the " possibility of prediction." — An argument 
founded on such possibility as cogent as if founded upon actual pre- 
diction, but then is in a vicious circle. — My position requires pre- 
science of the volitions of others, but not infallible prescience. — We 
often err by mistaking what others will do. — Mr. Mill virtually 
asserts that we can attain certainty when we know the antecedents. 
— This may be true if we know all the antecedents, including the 
being's last determinations. — We then know it because the being 
does itself determine its volitions, and is free 223-227 

33. Future volition cannot be known as an isolated fact, as an 
existing thing may. — If it could, this would destroy the presumption 
of necessary connection with its antecedents, and apply to free voli- 
tions as well as to unfree. — Such prescience would not indicate that 
the valition was not produced by the willing being, nor even that it 
did not produce itself. — The only "possibility of prediction" rests 
on the mind's control of its own volition. — If predicted without 
knowing the mind's final determination, the connection with the prior 
antecedents is broken, and the prediction does not prove any con- 
nection of that which is predicted with these antecedents. — Argu- 
ment for necessity must then recede a step, and show that, by the 
antecedents, the mind is " determined to determine." — Doubt as to 
whether such determination can be predicted. — There may be two 
or more modes which will suit the actor equally well. — By 
arbitrary decision among these, the chain of cause and effect is 
broken 227-230 

34. The mind's determination cannot be dependent on things and 
events extrinsic to it, for when its view differs from these, the 



CONTENTS. 299 

determination conforms to the view. — Hence only as these things 
and events affect our knowledge that they affect our determination. 

— Can we so know the knowledge of the agent as to predict his 
determination ? — Volition always a new power thrown in, breaking 
the order which would otherwise obtain, and also that it may be a 
beginning of action, having no past, indicate that there is no neces- 
sary connection with past antecedents, or means of predicting from 
them. — The peculiar diflBculty is, that the knowledge on which the 
determination depends is liable to be changed in the very process of 
determining. — In instinctive, habitual, and customa,ry actions, we 
do not seek new knowledge, and in these prediction is most reliable. 

— In all other cases we seek more knowledge for the purpose of 
determining, and thus, in the very act of determining, change the 
knowledge upon which the prediction of the determination is based. 

— The possible changes in such cases are infinite. — The data in 
such cases are insufficient, and prediction impossible. — To suppose 
that we can foreknow the result of the preliminary effort to determine 
begs the question, and also assumes the success of that effort, which 
is another very uncertain element. — This illustrated : A seeks to 
foreknow the determination of B. — Every attempt to do this must be 
through the knowledge of B, and assumes that B will conform his 
act to his knowledge, whether freely or not makes no difference to 
the " possibility of prediction." — The chain of connection of a future 
volition with present known conditions as easily foreknown if it is 
free as if necessitated . 230-236 

35. Prediction only indicates uniformity, not necessity. — Hence 
necessity cannot be inferred from prediction. — Freedom is an ele- 
ment of our expectation. — The difficulty of prediction least at the 
extremes of intelligence, because in these the liability to change of 
knowledge is least. — In all, some steadfastness in knowledge on 
which we rely. — Our power to influence another also a ground of 
prediction. — Illustrated by a move in chess, or otherwise changing 
the knowledge. — Faith in the future act of another is faith that he 
will perceive a reason for such act, and freely conform his action 
to it. 236-242 

36. Admitting that that which can certainly be predicted must of 
necessity come to pass, the question arises, is a Volition which is con- 
trolled by the willing agent less " possible of prediction " than one 



£jUU contents. 

which is controlled bj extrinsic power, or than one which he controls 
in another being? — It cannot be urged that the volition is controlled 
by some power or force more uniform in its action thaathe being in 
which it is manifested. — Such discrepancy would prove that it was 
not by such extrinsic power. — The possibility of prediction proves 
freedom rather than the contrary 242-244 

37. Necessitarians test their views by "statistical results," which, 
having a certain degree of uniformity, admit of like degree of 
certainty of prediction. — Our primary wants being similar, and all 
drawing knowledge from the same reservoir of truth, and acting 
upon similar conditions, it requires some element of diversity to 
account for the individual variations. — Having shown that uni- 
formity in the actions of individuals does not conflict with freedom, 
it seems needless to argue that uniformity in the aggregate of these 
actions does not. — If the variations on the one side "neutralize" 
those on the other, the estimated aggregate variations may be very 
much reduced. — The uniformity of aggregates is a uniformity of a 
second order — a Uniformity of Diversity. — Without diversity 
there could be no average species of uniformity. . . . 244-247 

38. Perhaps nothing but finite volitions of finite free agents can 
produce the variety which is the basis of the average uniformity of 
aggregates. — Illustrated by a machine for shuffling cards. — Only 
intelligent cause can produce the variation in the particulars which 
makes room or occasion for the calculations of changes or averages. 
— That each selects his act from all possible acts accounts for the 
observed diversities which are the subjects of these averages. — 
These have no bearing upon the question at issue. . . 247-250 

39. Reasons why attempts to solve the question of our freedom 
in willing have so often been unsuccessful. .... 250-254 

APPENDIX TO LETTER II. 

40. Existence of Matter 255-273 

41. Our Notion of Infinite Space 274-281 



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